Reviews

The Governor's School's Evening of Cabaret

      Cabaret is all about the text of the songs. Whether satiric, political, comedic or even erotic, they speak of human emotion, popular culture or political criticism in a way we all understand. On January 14 and 15, 2006 at the GSA Black Box Theatre the students of the Department of Vocal Music showcased some twenty-five songs. These talented young people provoked laughter, tears and some serious reflection, all in the context of having a great deal of fun. Michael Regan was at the piano and met the challenge of some very complex accompaniment, especially in the contemporary pieces.

      In mid-December all of the vocal students did a stunning job of presenting Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols with Barbara Chapman playing harp and Robert Brown as chorus director. Thirty-six a cappella voices joined to present glorious harmonies and well-sung solo parts. The contrast of the very gentle sections with others of great energy was so very beautiful. The faculty of the Vocal Music Department, led by chair Alan Fischer, offers a challenge that encourages excellence in these young people that culminates in a series of impressive public performances. The stage savvy that these students develop compares favorably with that of college students and in some cases that of professionals.

      It is not only the Music Department that excels. The Theatre Department presented Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman after Ovid, set in a pool with the play unfolding in and out of the water. Directed by Ricardo Melendez, the company of fifteen high school students created the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece in all their beauty, arrogance, brilliance, grace, stupidity and grandeur.

      Scheduled for March 18 and 19 is a liederabend, an evening of classical German art songs - lyric poetry set for voice and piano. Watch the Artsong Update Calendar for details.

Governor's School for the Arts Winning Music Program

      From the Governor's School for the Arts website we learn "Two more GSA Alumni to join Broadway Show. Mary Faber, Theatre Department student class of 1997, will begin rehearsals for Avenue Q and will take over the role of Kate Monster the week after Christmas. This is the second GSA theatre alumni in a leading role on Broadway. Currently Matt Caplan, Theatre Department class of 1997, is starring as Mark in Broadway's smash hit Rent. Tiffany Haas, former Vocal Music alumni, will join the cast of Wicked in December."

      From the Boston Globe, February 3, 2006, the headline reads "Quintiliani Reigns in Spain" and then continues to give the details of soprano Barbara Quintiliani, 29, who once was a student at the Governor's School, winning the Francisco Vinas International Vocal Competition in Barcelona. She won both the grand prize and the prize for singing Verdi. The prize included an engagement at Theatro Liceo in Barcelona where she sang Elettra in Mozart's Idomeneo. The Verdi prize was donated by the great Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé who presented it in person. She is one of this writer's favorite singers. "It was really something for me to gaze into the face of my idol on the stage of her home theatre" says Ms. Quintiliani. Regine Crepin was on the jury.

      Barbara and family have moved from the Washington, D.C. area back to Quincy, Massachusetts and she will sing the title role in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia with Opera Boston on April 28 - May 2.

      Opera Boston, April 28, 2006. Barbara Quintiliani sang the title role in Lucrezia Borgia. "Singing with opulence, radiance and sheer visceral power, Quintiliani found layers of passion and resolve at once dark, complex and primitive." This former GSA student is fast becoming a bel canto superstar. To read the entire review, see the July Opera News, page 42.

      At the Schola Cantorum concert Lee Teply asked if we had heard that Marjorie Owens, a 1999 Governor's School graduate, was a recent Met Auditions finalist. We had not. An email to Alan Fischer brought us the details. "Marjorie was in the graduating class of 1999. She attended Baylor University and then participated in the Houston Grand Opera Young Artists Program. She is currently in the Chicago Lyric Opera Young Artist Program. She recently sang the Old Prioress in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites with the Fort Worth Opera. At the Met Auditions Finals she sang D'Oreste e d'Ajace from Idomeneo, and To this we've come from Menotti's The Consul."

Governor's School First Liederabend

      In the past the Governor's School's art song offerings were included in a potpourri of opera arias, theater and art songs. To enrich the community and their curriculum, Alan Fischer, Vocal Music Department Chair and teachers Robert Brown, Carin Cowell, Karen Hoy, Charlene Marchant and Michael Regan have worked to create the school's first all-art song recital.

      To heighten the sense of a gala occasion the student singers were beautifully dressed in eveningwear to sing solo songs with all the courage required. Over twenty selections were presented by these hard-working talented young people. The level of accomplishment for the most part was tied to experience, with seniors giving natural and polished performances. We were impressed by the confidence and skill they had developed in making the music come alive.

      The program opened with two German and two French selections by the Advanced Vocal Ensemble. The group of eight voices gave us precise part singing with clear diction and enthusiasm. The ensemble is led by Dr. Lee Teply who also directs Schola Cantorum where his spoken introductions with the gist of the texts aids audience enjoyment.

      I suspect that it was an audience mostly new to art song. A spoken introduction to each set of songs and a short synopsis of the text for the foreign language songs would have helped bring listeners into the esoteric world of art song.

      The first art song group, eight unrelated Italian songs, was sung by underclassmen. For some it was their first solo public performance, and yet their training combined with natural acting and singing talent helped them give convincing performances.

      Next came three American songs. In Aaron Copland's All the Pretty Little Horses with its folksong simplicity, we heard senior Morgan Duke demonstrate the polish that can develop in a program that provides lots of real life stage experience to its students. In Florence Price's Song of the Dark Virgin, senior Will Liverman sang with beauty of tone in his deep, powerful bass voice.

      Other senior performers were Paige Porter who gave us an emotionally valid Les chemins de l'amour written by Francis Poulenc. Barbara Triscritti sang Bist du bei mir by J.S. Bach with good diction and sweet low notes. Jeffrey Soto's very expressive face and polished delivery helped create a deeply moving Gute Nacht from Franz Schubert's Winterreise

      There was a problem in several songs in the balance in volume of voice and piano. The singers stood quite close to the back of the upright piano which faced the audience so they had to compete with it to be heard. Often the piano was just too loud. For example, Josh Conyers big, powerful bass voice was overwhelmed by the complex piano accompaniment in Thomas Kerr's Riding to Town.

      We learned after the performance that Melissa Johnson used her selection, Ned Rorem's Alleluia, as her successful audition piece for both Cincinnati College Conservatory and Carnegie Mellon University. Watching the students grow year by year gives me even greater pleasure in seeing what the seniors have accomplished. You, the public, will have other chances to hear these young singers. The spring opera production is Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe. It will be performed at the historic Attucks Theater on April 21, 22 and 23. The Spring Vocal Concert is May 19 & 20 and the Senior Recital is June 3. See the Artsong Update calendar for details.

The Governor's School Stages an American Classic

      Coming in from the street they are teenagers in casual clothes but in a short time were transformed, as if by magic, into historical figures. Historic photographs of Horace Tabor, Augusta Tabor and Baby Doe as well as those of the Matchless Mine and the Tabor Grand Opera House are projected onto the back wall of the stage. The lifeless body of a woman lies on the stage giving a mysterious, sad aura to what we are about to see.

      We saw one of three performances of The Ballad of Baby Doe with music by Douglas Moore (1893 -1969) and libretto by John Latouche on Saturday evening, April 22, 2006 at the fine Attucks Theatre in Norfolk. Elizabeth "Baby" Doe was played by Emi Lee Frantz. In the Friday and Sunday performances Candice Paige Porter played the role. Our friend Margaret Gupta saw the opera on Sunday and, like us, was impressed by the singing of the three main characters. Our Horace Tabor was Willie Liverman, her's was Joshua Conyers. Augusta Tabor was Alexandria Gray on the 22nd and Melissa Johnson on the 21st and 23rd. All turned in excellent vocal performances and believable characterizations. M. Grayson Heyl as Mama McCourt sang in all three performances. The opera has a cast of more than twenty other characters and with other students in production jobs, almost the entire student membership of the Vocal Music Department was involved in this excellent staging of a truly American tale.

      The story is set in Colorado during the silver rush and covers the years 1888 -1899 and beyond. Horace Tabor is an impulsive businessman, sort of the Donald Trump of his day, who buys silver mines. His conservative wife, Augusta, is a shrewd money manager and hard worker. Horace buys the Matchless mine and soon they have great wealth and join the power elite building the city of Leadville, including a fine opera house.

      Elizabeth "Baby" Doe deserts her feckless husband and comes to visit Leadville, meets and enthralls Horace who is thirty years her senior. "Baby" Doe meets Augusta and does not like her attitude toward Horace. Both divorce, marry each other and spend time in Washington, D.C. where he is appointed Senator to fill out a term. Social scorn there and back in Denver does not cool their love. The collapse of silver reverses their fortune. Horace had failed to diversify his portfolio and they lose everything except the Matchless Mine. As he is dying three years later he asks "Baby" to keep the mine. Thirty-five years later she freezes to death at the mine shack and rejoins her beloved Horace. It was a stunning, emotionally valid experience!

Senior Vocal Recital
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Don't Be Surprised to See Some of these Students at the Met Some Day

      When I hear recitals by adults that are having obvious issues like lack of expression, or opera singers who are not connecting their vocal production to the text, I always wish they had started their training at the Governor's School for the Arts in Norfolk. I have no doubt that colleges and universities are pleased to have students who already have developed such skills in high school.

      There are eight seniors graduating from the vocal music program at GSA and each is off to college to continue their training. Each sang three selections at the Senior Vocal Recital and I will highlight one song by each student based not on what they did best but what catches my fancy today. Morgan Duke (Virginia Commonwealth University) sang Kern's All the Things You Are with a convincing vulnerability while Melissa Johnson (Carnegie Mellon) displayed a polished maturity that belies her age in Ach, ich fuhls from Mozart's Magic Flute. Candice Paige Porter (Westminster Choir College) gave us a lovely bit of cabaret when she sang Les Chemins de l'amour by Poulenc and Barbara Triscritti (George Mason) sang Song to the Moon (in the original Czech) from Dvorák's opera Rusalka.

      The young men were equally impressive. Josh Conyers (North Carolina School for the Arts), in Kerr's Riding to Town gave us a nuanced performance and there was a perfect balance of voice and piano. Ira Harris (Shenandoah University) regaled us with his well choreographed It Ain't Necessarily So by George Gershwin. The best I've seen anywhere!

      Will Liverman (Wheaton College) is a natural born singer with amazing stage presence. In Song to the Dark Virgin by Florence Price my reaction was "Wow!" Jeffrey Soto (Hartt College of Music) proved himself to be a serious and talented young singer. Watching the intensity build verse by verse in Svegliatevi nel core from Handel's Giulio Cesare demonstrated just how skillfully he can bring a character to life.

      Faculty member Robert Brown was pianist for the recital and met the challenge of the many moods and styles of playing required in this diverse program. Once again the talented faculty at GSA has given their young charges a firm foundation in the art of music and all of that stage experience to build self-confidence and a sureness of vocation. Thank you Alan Fischer, Robert Brown, Carin Cowell, Karen Hoy, Charlene Marchant, Michael Regan, Lee Teply and the new piano man, Arnel Senson.