Word: songe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Compared to the outbursts of "Du liebst mich nicht" (You love me not), the opening song, "Im Fruehling" (In Spring), seemed only a bright little ditty. Still, the performance was commanding, mostly because Goode's reserved dynamics suited Upshaw's light voice well, "Du Liebst" was was a fine show for a voice equally suited to the roles of Susanna and Cherubino. Upshaw is far bolder than most vocalists in dramatizing the meaning of the words with gestures and expressions, and she diverted many pairs of eyes from reading the program to staring at the stage. "Die Junge Nonne...
...next song, a slight ballad by Friedrich Rueckert (the same one who made Mahler's masterpiece possible), was the evening's first jewel. As an astute listener remarked, "Dass sie hier gewesen" (That she was here) was ravishing because Goode wove in Upshaw's calm melody among a gently insistent stream of suspended fourths. The last of the five, "Der Musensohn" (The Muses' Son, a poem by Goethe), was a vehicle more for Goode's talent than Upshaw's--his capricious part intimated one of his upcoming Brahms solos. Unfortunately, the lace of technical difficulty left him free...
Goulet's original songs are all enjoyable, and there is a pleasantly subversive contrast between the jaunty, 1920s style music and ironic lyrics. Some of the tunes borrow from Parker's poetry, which works surprisingly well in songs like "Poets Alone Should Kiss and Tell" and "Sunshine." The ensemble song "Men (I'm Not Married To)" also turns a sardonic concept into a buoyant musical number. But cast members often had to struggle to be heard over the accompanying band, so that in many cases the music was heard but the words were muffled...
DIED. BERNARD VONNEGUT, 82, physicist who turned rainmaking into more than a song and dance; in Albany, N.Y. An expert in tempests and twisters, Vonnegut (brother of novelist Kurt) conjured rain in the 1940s by seeding clouds with silver iodide...
Daulne, 32, has a sad, splintery voice and an emotional clock that seems permanently set at midnight. Her background singers, harmonizing, chanting, even bleating, provide her with a vocal backdrop that's by turns naturalistic and a little coy. One song, the jazzy Nostalgie Amoureuse, feels like vocal film noir--shadowy and mysterious until, toward the end, Daulne's voice emerges from the mix with bruised passion. Other songs, like African Sunset, draw deftly on the upbeat music of South Africa's townships. But the best song is Daulne's seductive cover of Phoebe Snow's Poetry Man; that song...