Clips & Articles: Music

Seattle's world premiere "Amelia" takes off with grace

Review of Seattle Opera's "Amelia"
 

Originally published on Concertonet.com, May 31, 2010

Seattle—Seattle Opera lacked a crucial element since lauded general director Speight Jenkins has run the show for 27 years. Until now, he has never commissioned an opera.

With Amelia, which made its elaborate two-hour world premiere in May, operagoers should have even firmer confidence in Jenkins' vision. Beginning in 2002, when he sorted through contemporary composers' works with director Stephen Wadsworth, settling on Daron Aric Hagen's music, he never looked back from his original intention to make an American opera with American themes.

He did much more that in spearheading the creation of this distinctly modern yet delightfully tuneful opera. Favorable reviews and healthy audience attendance are proving that Jenkins and his Seattle company are well worth their worldwide reputation for more than Wagnerian operas.

The story of Amelia, based on Gardner McFall's poetic libretto (and childhood), is about a girl who loses her much-loved pilot father when he's shot down during the Vietnam War in the mid-1960s. At least that is the beginning. The storyline is anything but linear or literal. It jumps around in time and pursues several storylines and time periods simultaneously.

We see young Amelia (sung by the petite soprano Ashley Emerson) grow into a questioning young woman (captivating mezzo Kate Lindsey) who has never resolved the loss of her father. She goes to Vietnam in 1985 to find out more details about his death, which slakes some of her curiosity, but 10 years later, when pregnant, she becomes overwrought with fear about bringing her own child into the world whom she might lose as she did her dad. As McFall's libretto repeats many times over, "the risk is worth the love." To complicate things, her husband Paul (baritone Nathan Gunn) designs top-secret fighter planes, which tips Amelia into an in-office hysterical fit (a rare scene for a mezzo though Lindsey takes it to its extreme in operatic tradition). Her dramatic fit leads to a coma, which she does come out of in the second act in a full-on accurately designed hospital room.

Of course, in Seattle, with a name like Amelia and a company like Boeing, the opera was a natural for the themes of flight. The Flier, sung by soprano Jennifer Zetlan, an obvious stand-in for the wildly idealistic, high-achieving red-blooded American aviatrix Amelia Earhart earns a mythical, above-stage presence (until the end when she encourages the down-on-earth post-coma Amelia to have her baby naturally, as Amelia insists). Set designer Thomas Lynch even built a full replica of her Lockheed Electra, Earhart's plane on her final 1937 flight when she went missing in the Pacific. The replica plane rolled on stage with a wingspan of 55 feet, yet another operatic feat. The extraordinary sets required17 builders, 10 scenic artists, 20,000 hours, 2 1/2 miles of steel and aluminum, and quite literally, a first-scene kitchen sink. The sets are so complicated that conductor Gerard Schwarz plays almost 5 minutes of music during the scene changes, which makes the opera seem much longer than its two hours.

A parallel story of the mythical Icarus and Daedalus about the son who flew too high, singed his wings on the sun, and crashed to his death, is intertwined with Amelia's tale. In the second act, Icarus becomes a late 20th-century boy in the hospital, his father by his side, in a room next to Amelia's. He dies as Amelia survives and the baby is triumphantly born au naturel.

The most amazing thing about this new opera is not its sweeping movielike music, lyrical words, imaginative sets, illuminating lighting, fabulous singing (tenor William Burden, soprano Jane Eaglen and Lindsey were all notable) and good acting (there were many secondary roles that required singers to play two roles during the opera), but the collaboration that made these elements work together. Jenkins chose the singers before Hagen wrote the score so the music fits the voices. Wadsworth took McFall's poetic words and shaped them into scenes, which whether or not in sequence, made sense on a number of levels, including those tricky metaphorical ones.

And then there's the nonette, sung a cappella at the end of the final act, which will blow devotees of daring unaccompanied ensemble-singing into ecstasy.

The opera has legs, tunes, and the ability to fly. Expect to see it performed many years hence after the giddiness of its first days fade.

Angela Allen

(McCaw Hall, Seattle, Wa., presented on 05/08/2010 & May 9, 12, 15, 16, 19, 22

Seattle Opera

Beach sings in sweet Portuguese

Oregon Music News CD review of "Brasil Beat"
 

Originally published on Oregon Music News, May 31, 2010

Lucky for us, Bill Beach rose from the dead Benson Hotel's basement and went to Brazil.

This spring the pianist released his energetic Brasil Beat (yes, Brazilians spell it that way) on his label, Axial Records. Six of the 12 tracks feature Beach's breathy baritone-bass shaping original Portuguese lyrics. Cross-checked with Portuguese linguists, the lyrics are precisely articulated and beautifully phrased. Beach is a stickler for details and authenticity, as relaxed as his vocals sound.

The music, his originals as well, is painted with the bright colors and influences of mid-century Brazilians Antonia Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto. (Beach's voice and soft singing style are quite similar to Gilberto's.) Don't forget Carlos Lyra, Edu Lobo, Luis Eca, Sergio Mendes, Joao Donato and Milton Nascimento: Beach learned from all of them.

Pieces range from the upbeat "Aceitacao e Gratidao," ("Acceptance and Gratitude"), which Portland singer Becky Kilgore recently incorporated into her repertoire, to the playfully alliterative "Minha Maluquinha" ("My Little Lunatic"). And then there's "Os Sonhos do Estio" ("The Dreams of Summer") that will transport you to the beach, in the prone position. Find the lyrics in Portuguese and in English at billbeach.com.

The six pieces without lyrics, including "Mister Mersereau," "Brasil Beat," "Mary Louise," "Hobbs," "Samba das Velas" ("Samba of the Sails") and "Tsuyo" are as high-energy as those cuts with Beach's seductive, light-stepping singing.

You can play this CD thousands of times, clean the house with its tunes behind you, shove it into the car's CD player and cross the country with it, sprawl on the couch with it, and never overdose. Each tune is melodic and captures the irresistibly danceable latin beat.

Speaking of the rhythm, Dave Captein plays bass, Reinhardt Meltz is on drums, and Vancouver's Gary Hobbs performs magic on two cajons (common in flamenco music), a snare and a hi-hat. Beach's piece, "Hobbs," is designed for Hobbs to shine on, and that he does.

A longtime Oregon jazz pianist by way of small-town Corvallis, Beach has been recording Brazilian music for several years and singing forever (his mother was a piano teacher and thre is a piece for her called "Mary Louise"). His vocals took a vacation as his piano chops intensified in the mid-'80s. He started crooning again in 2002 and went public with his Brazilian bug in 2004 when he recorded several interpretations of Brazilian classics on his CD, Letting Go.

Beach captures the lyricism of influential pianists Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, even under the bossa nova overlay. He and his Brazil-centric music are so easy to like.

Portland's Darwish is pushing music forward

Oregon Music News Review of Silverton Wine & Jazz Fest musicians
 

Originally published on Oregon Music News, May 9, 2010

Portlander Ben Darwish and his quartet stepped it up a notch at the caramel-corn-scented Palace Theater as part of the Silverton Wine & Jazz Festival. If you missed this gig, you lost out on the most innovative of the day, though certainly the sexy mid-century couple of bass genius Glen Moore and the inimitable crooner/scatter/partner Nancy King, accompanied by pianist Dan Gaynor, attracted a way bigger crowd later in the evening.

Sosa's Afreecanos energize Jimmy Mak's

Oregon Music News review

Originally published on Oregon Music News, April 18, 2010

The Music:

OK. Dr. Lonnie Smith and Gil Scott-Heron, even Nicholas Payton, reaped the lion's share of publicity for the Soul'd Out Music Festival continuing through this week in Portland.

"Souza: far more than a singer"

Portland Jazz Festival review
 

Originally published on Oregon Music News, Feb. 25 2010

PORTLAND—If you were hoping for a red-hot Latina performance at the Portland Jazz Festival's opener Thursday, you didn't get it.

"Max Raabe: sauve, sophisticated, hard to pin down"

Oregon Symphony review
 

Originally published on Northwest Reverb, Feb. 25, 2010

PORTLAND—In patent-leather shoes and tails, every hair slicked into place, Max Raabe led two hours of wit, elegance and impeccably presented music from the '20s and '30s at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

"`Cosi' delivers flawless chemistry"

Portland Opera review

Originally published in Concertonet.com, Feb. 7, 2010

Portland, Oregon
Keller Auditorium
2/5/2010 and Feb. 7, 11 and 13
Wofgang Amadeus Mozart: Cosi fan Tutti

PORTLAND—Mozart's music, as singers say, is medicine for the voice. Light, lyric, and a century ahead of its time with its compositional cohesiveness, the maestro's melodies shaped a full-throttle comedic "Cosi" in Portland.

"Reeves’ Vaughan-like performance seals her reputation"

Portland Jazz Festival and Oregon Symphony review

Originally published on Northwest Reverb (northwestreverb.blogspot.com), Feb. 16, 2009

PORTLAND -- Just when you think a Valentine’s date with the Oregon Symphony and glamorous jazz singer Dianne Reeves is shaping up to be utterly predictable and sentimental, the night throws in a few surprises.

"Terence Blanchard and the Portland Jazz Orchestra team up for fabulous concert"

Review of Blanchard at the Portland Jazz Festival

Originally published on Northwest Reverb (NorthwestReverb.blogspot.com), Feb. 14, 2009

PORTLAND -- When Terence Blanchard, trumpet in hand, asked the Arlene Schnitzer audience to chime in on a chorus of  “A Tale of God’s Will,” bassist Derrick Hodge smiled sweetly.

There was little chance that the audience, as ardent as it was, could capture the deep emotion that New Orleans’ Blanchard did when he composed this music based on his hometown’s tragedy. Bets are, “A Tale of God’s Will” will stick around in the archives for years. Portlanders were truly lucky to hear it.

"Pearl Fishers staging saves the libretto"

Review of Seattle Opera's "The Pearl Fishers"

Originally published on Concertonet.com, Jan. 27, 2009

When the harnessed “flying” dancer floated dreamily behind the blue scrim to signal the pearl harvest in a far-off country, we were invited into a visually arresting show of “The Pearl Fishers,” if not into the most compelling story.