World of Music

You have to experience Ute Lemper live to appreciate the full effect, but her new CD “Paris Days, Berlin Nights” gets close to what she conjures onstage. Pristinely recorded over three days in February of this year, the sessions capture the genuine artistry of an all but forgotten musical era. This is not a desiccated world of Hollywood’s image of 30s Weimar and Parisian cabaret, but a vibrantly liberated arts world expressing love, lust, loss, war, resignation, yearning and escape.

Lemper is accompanied by the string chamber group The Volger Quartet with Tim Vogler and Frank Reinecke (violin), Stefan Fehlandt (viola), Stephan Forck (cello)- with arrangements by Stefan Malzew, who also plays piano, accordion and clarinet on these songs.

She hypnotizes on such lost gems as “L’Accordeoniste” accompanied by Malzew in a carnivale waltz that eventually ends in a crashing vocal meltdown. Such oft distilled material as Weill-Brecht’s ’Surabaya Johnny & Die Moritat von Mackie Messer’ (Mack, the Knife) so softened over the years, is restored to its grotesque beauty.

Jewish Kabarett songs are the most revelatory on this CD. ’Temnaya Noch’ (Dark in the Night) with music by Nikita Bogolovsky and text by Vladimir Agatov is a war scene of a desperately private moments of a couple shielding their baby from dodging bullets as the Nazis roll over the steppes. Lemper is riveting in this whispering, heart wrenching lullaby. ’Ikh shtey unter a Bokersboym’ (I Stand Beneath a Carob Tree) by Polish-Israeli composer Chava Alberstein.

A detour to South America for neuvo tango with Astor Piazzolla’s ’La ultima grela’ is brought to instant erotic pulse via Lemper’s character contralto, not to mention the instrumental vamping by Volger and Malzew. Lemper herself wrote lyrics of melancholy for Piazzolla’s ’Oblivion’ to accompany a follow-up hot-house arrangement.

Lush violin accompaniment for Jacques Brel’s ’Ne me Quitte Pas’ (If you go away) as Lemper pays homage in a tormented reading ala Brel, with a sweaty, boozy performance. Lemper’s range goes from sultry whispers that is completely intoxicating to tour de force vocals that may come over as overwrought, but are true to the period genre and boffo cabaret diva. This is a haunted and elegant recording of rescued repertoire that showcases the indelible artistry of Lemper and the Volger Quartet.

World of Music

Symphony in C
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin
Gordon Theater, Rutgers-Camden
May 5

Conductor Rossen Milanov just finished up his first season as director of Symphony in C, has reinvented himself a bit from the exuberant presence during his tenure as associate conductor at the Philadelphia Orchestra. Not that he isn’t as likeable as ever, but his demeanor is quieter and at performance time he seems laser focused on the music and the musicians.

In fact, even the spotlight on the conductor’s stand dims at the start of each piece they are playing. Symphony in C is a training camp for young professional musicians, who fan out to orchestras around the world.

Milanov and the orchestra were in fine form May 5 for their season closing concert at their home in the acoustically excellent Gordon Theater at Rutgers-Camden Center for Arts.

The concert opened with Roger Zare’s Green Flash which refers to the moment when sunset ends. Zare is the winner of the 2012 Young Composers Competition. The composer conjures vivid atmospherics with exotic percussion and eerie string bends, yet the abstractions are inviting rather than jarring.

The almost inaudible low rumble of the orchestra builds to a sonic density, flares then vanishes, the receding lower strings still humming. It’s an evocative work and Zare was on hand to hear how well it was received.

Green Flash was a fine prelude to György Ligeti’s challenging Concerto for Violin and Orchestra composed in 1993. This is an orchestral thriller in five movements, full of dramatic contrasts and amorphous structures and Ligeti’s violin a dervish of modulating techniques.

Milanov and his orchestra exhibited such clarity and control facing off against the mach speed agility of violin soloist Augustin Hadelich. Ligeti’s density surfs shrillness and Hadelich’s line polish is stunning as he maintains the warmest textures. Mostly he impresses, past virtuosity, as a salt-of-the-earth fiddler, obviously the inner chamber of this work, past its technical requirements.

Meanwhile, the orchestra was completely engaged with the interlocks and overlays masterfully paced with standout percussion, roiling counterpoint from the lower strings and the woodwinds, essaying a primal dissonance in the intermezzo that builds to a shattering off the cliff arrest.

The orchestra may have had a bit of Ligeti afterburn going into Antonín Dvorák’s New World Symphony but Milanov powered through the first movement and leaned on the bombast throughout. This is a wildly popular warhorse but to some, Dvorak’s symphonic hook gets tired after the 5th variation.

Milanov kept up the surface string fireworks at the expense of the more interesting inner drive. In contrast, the brass was tight and reined-in throughout, and in the second movement Largo, there was simmering lushness and its core orchestral serenity, simply spectacular.

Gay politics

Homophobia, as American as…

Many GLBT people, as well as straights, have long suspected that some people are so conflicted within their own sexual identity they become homophobic as a way to repress their natural feelings.

Now researchers Richard M. Ryan and William S. Ryan explain in this month’s issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that “we and our fellow researchers provide empirical evidence that homophobia can result, at least in part, from the suppression of same-sex desire. “ The authors conclude. They also explain their study in an oped in the New York Times in the futile hope the finding might change attitudes immediately.

So many scientific studies support the fact that gay identity is hard-wired-  dna studies, hypothalamus or finger-size studies, seems like it has settled the matter put so bluntly by Lady Gaga, we are indeed Born that Way. But all of that makes not a wit of difference to the homophobic sectors of our society, whether they are closet cases or not.

I believe that there are other reasons that people are homophobic- morbid church teachings, mob mentality for starters and of course, attacking someone for what is perceived as being different is as American as apple pie. In fact, the hating starts in many homes, as the Ryan study points out, citing a broad commonality among homophobic individuals that is routed in their parents’ teachings and negative views of homosexuals.

Much of the rhetoric of homophobes is based on what they say is supposed to be told in the Bible. Very selective passages from the old testament, that have other condemnations that have been categorically ignored. Jesus says nothing about homosexuality and that, pretty much, says it all, especially to those of us are not religious.

Nevertheless, there is an alarming rise in so called ’ex-gay’ therapies, particularly designed for teens in evangelical Christian communities. One wonders if electroshock treatments in the wings again?

Since WWII, gay Americans have been coming out of the closet in droves and since Stonewall we are an evolving national civil rights movement. One thing straight America has to deal with is that we will never go back. We are millions of tax-paying, declared sexual minorities.

Gays look back in anger of the decades of being maligned, ostracized, jailed, harassed, fired, attacked and murdered for their sexual identity. But, many in the straight world want us to go back to the days when we were defined and controlled by their mores.

But, more visibility has ignited broad backlash and homophobia is in fact big political business. Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum had a lot of antigay money behind them to vault their candidacies for the presidency as antigay revivals sweep the land.

And antigay sentiment is ripe in many state legislatures, who are moving bills through to allow discrimination in employment and housing or roll backs in progay initiatives involving adoptions and gay spousal rights. At least two states are about to pass ’Don’t say gay’ laws in schools. Free speech be damned, a state wants to erase not just a word, but a who group of people.

President Obama has the support of GLBT America as being the most pro-gay President so far, even if loyalty has been tested by his ’evolving’ support of full marriage equality. Meanwhile, he is portrayed by the Evangelicals and many on the right as a radical gay activist by his enemies who successfully use his alliance to gay causes and groups to attack him.

The fact that Santorum has now bowed out should not be viewed as any sort of victory to GLBT America. Lucas Gridley, in a deft analysis of his success in this month’s Advocate Magazine reveals that all of the gay even Rachel Maddow to journalist Dan Savage were blindsided by Santorum’s success. There is so much momentum that candidate Santorum in the final weeks of his candidacy took the antigay gloves off once again, after toning down the rhetoric for months, and said that he would ban gay marriage and nullify any same-sex marriage. Pronouncements like this from any politician should be a rallying cry of us to fight to even harder to dispel the myths and fight for civil-rights.

Whatever the psychological causes of homophobia, we must be ready to confront how it manifests- whether it is bullying in schools, or gay bashings, or hysterical condemnations from divisive politicians or petrified judgments from evangelicals, whether the haters are in the closet themselves or not.

Opera

  Academy of Vocal Arts’ production of L’elisir d’amore is set in 1945 Italy and features Peter Harrison’s very warm set with angled rows of books in dark wood frames. The props a trove of period items such as a black lacquer manual typewriter, a period hi-fi. All perfect backdrops for Val Starr’s costumes with the men decked out in film noir suits and the women in a colorful array of tight sweaters, wraparound skirts and liberation day pumps. A poster of Il Duce hangs for the moment straight up on the back wall.

Director Nic Muni takes a risk updating Elisir to such a historically pivotal time as the end of WWII, but it works as a Donizetti farce and a grand melodramatic work it is. The war weary Italians get together in the neutral zone of the library to indulge in various post-war activities. Enter Adina, the head librarian, who is smoking even before she lights a cigarette. She distracts with a reading of the tale of Isolde’s magic love potion and presto, Dr. Dulcamara is hustling such a potion, which is actually just wine and is set upon by the hapless Nemorino, a custodian at the library, who is besotted by Adina.

Nemorino buys some of the potion, gets drunk and blows it playing hard to get with Adina. Meanwhile, the very ungallant Belcore, sergeant in the Axis army, is a handsome fascist who starts conscripting the men and hitting on the women, but is stopped dead in his tracks by Adina. The misunderstanding with Nemorino causes her to accept Belcore’s proposal, but she soon starts to understand the depth of Nemorino’s true love when he enlists in the army just to have the funds to buy more of the potion that would make her fall for him.

Both Muni and conductor Christofer Macatsoris go past the contrivances of the plot and themes of love lost, lust, betrayal, jealousy are all intoxicatingly freshly uncorked in this Elisir. Rossini-esque crispness in the progressions and flowing orchestral mis-en-scenes are faced off by lots of sonic singing, particularly by the chorus that was outsized for the room, but otherwise glorious in its textures.

Soprano Sydney Mancasola, giving Rita Hayworth a run for her money with smoldering auburn hair tumbling over her gorgeous eyes, just vocally thrilling and subtly interpretive. Musa Ngqungwana’s bass just kept giving comedically and with a lot of heart as the bombastic Doctor.

As the unrelenting cad Belcore, Wes Mason, is a silky baritone. Chrystal E. Williams was that blond bob and polka skirt girl from town that everybody loves, and her mezzo was a silvery stratosphere and charming. But it was Luigi Boccia’s hapless Nemorino, who just breaks out in this role as the drunken suitor. When he sings the famous “Una furtiva largima” his bittersweet renunciation of Adina that just melted everybody’s heart and brought the house down. Macatsoris’ gorgeous orchestration with Sophie Bruno’s haunting harp and Geoffrey Deemer’s fine oboe line at the forefront.