Divine Véronique Gens Wigmore Hall

Véronique Gens's recital  at the Wigmore Hall was an almost ideal distillation of of the belle époque.in song. Over the years we've heard many specialists in French song at the Wigmore Hall, but Gens perhaps outshines them all.  With her background in baroque, lucid purity comes naturally, but she sings with exceptional intelligence. It's hard to explain why she's so distinctive, but her final encore (of three) might suggest an answer. Roses, jasmine and orange blossom infuse Gabriel Fauré's Les roses d'Ispahan. The vocal line moves gently like the breeze in the text. Yet the song is not about flowers but lost love. It's all the more poignant because it's so subtle. Gens doesn't dramatize, but lets the perfumed elegance convey depth of emotion. 

Last December, Gens created an esoteric selection of relatively little known  songs by Massenet, Gounod and Reynaldo Hahn. Read about it here. Now she chose a more familiar programme: Fauré, Chausson, Debussy, Duparc and more Hahn.  Fauré's Au bord de L'eau (op8/1 1875)  and Après un rêve (op7/1 1877) were poised, but Gens created even greater interest with Lydia (op 4/2 1870) to a poem by Leconte de Lisle. "Je t'aime et meurs, ô mes amours. Mon âme en baisers m'est ravie!" Love and death so intertwined that we can't be sure that Lydia is alive at all.

Henri Duparc's L'invitation du voyage (1870)  is so famous that it's true meaning can be missed.The poet is Baudelaire, after all.  The piano part (Susan Manoff) is limpid and delicate. These rippling waters might suggest Schubert, but the idiom is entirely different. No "gothic" histrionics here. The passion is cool but sinister. Similarly, Duparc's Romance de Mignon (1869) is decidedly un-German though it's based on Goethe's Mignon song Kennst du das Land.? The drama's more muted, though the feelings are just as deep. These days it's fashionable to disregard idiom but for me that's bad taste. What's the point of performing different composers in the same way? Musically-informed is much more literate. Gens and Manoff show how Duparc's Mignon springs from a different aesthetic. Gens followed with Debussy's Fleur des Blés (1881) and Nuit d'etoiles (1880) which are almost her signature tunes. Her recording of Debussy, Fauré and Poulenc with Roger Vignoles (2000) is very good indeed. 

Normally I don't describe what a singer wears, but Gens returned after the interval in a remarkable dress slit up to her midriff, but discreetly held together with tulle. Strikingly elegant, raising gasps of admiration from the audience. She seemed inspired, her performance in the second part of the programme quite divine. Like the hummingbird in Ernest Chausson's Le colibri (op2/7 1882) Gens glistened "comme un frais rayon s'échappé dans l'air". Her Les papillions (op 2/3 1880) hinted at erotic secrets in a refined manner. The sorrow in Les temps de lilas (op 19 1886) was expressed with elegant dignity. Gens and Manoff concluded with seven songs by Reynaldo Hahn. Hahn imbibes from exotic sources, so idiosyncrasic and so over the top. In three songs from Études latines (1900) Lydé, Tyndaris, Pholoé), he gets carried away with Leconte de Lisle's elaborate fanstasies of fake Antiquity. Gens and Manoff catch Hahn's effusive high spirits.  These put the famous A Chloris (1916) into context. Hahn's hamming up again, this time with Bach. Beautiful as the song is, it's mischief in music. Appropriately, Gens and Manoff concluded this evening of songs ostensibly about flowers and birds with Hahn's Le printemps (1899). Hahn's ebullient, exuberant and exhilirating - banished are the "flowers of evil". "Te voilà, rire du Printemps!", sang Gens, with a glorious flourish.

Sandrine Piau, Roger Vignoles, Wigmore Hall

Sandrine Paiu and Roger Vignoles teamed up  for the latest concert in Vignoles's "Perspectives" series at the Wigmore Hall.  Piau's background is in the baroque, where the ethereal purity of her voice seems to illuminate the music. Yet she's also passionately involved in 20th century French music, and has worked with innovative ensembles like Accentus.

Piau and Vignoles are a well-balanced partnership, and on the basis of this concert, should work together more often. Piau brings out the best in Vignoles. He was playing with great refinement, as if inspired by her distinctive "white" timbre. Piau's Fauré songs were good, but her Chausson set even better. Her Amour d'antan (op 8/2, 1882) glowed, legato perfectly controlled so lines flowed seamlessly. In Dans la forêt du charme et de l’enchantement (op.36/2, 1898) Piau observes the tiny pauses between words in the first strophe so they're brief glimpses of elusive fairies. Then Piau's voice darkens. The fairies aren't real. "Mirage et leurre", she sings, desolated. Piau sings almost unaccompanied in Les Heures (op 27/1, 1896), Vignoles playing with restraint so as not to break the fragile mood of the song. Hear these again on Piau's recent recording "Après un rêve" (details HERE).

In the more robust Liszt songs,  like Der Fischerknabe, (S292), to a poem by Friedrich Schiller, Vignoles's playing sparkled delightfully, like the waters that seduce the fisherman's boy. "Lieb' Knabe, bist mein!" sings Piau sharply, as the boy is pulled under the waves. Piau's voice maintains its innocence, but the piano with its sharp lunge downwards tells us that it's a malign spirit who drags the boy down. Der Loreley (S273, 1856) is even more dramatic, Piau intoning the word "Loreley"  so you hear the tragedy behind the loveliness.

Piau's 2002 recording of Debussy Mélodies with Jan van Immseel, is still one of the best available. Ten years later, Piau's voice is still fresh. Her Ariettes oubliées (op 22) to poems by Verlaine, was a pleasure. Long, arching lines, thrown out effortlessly in Il pleure dans mon coeur, expressing sadness, tinged with a very French decorum. "Quoi? null trahison? .....ce deuil est sans raison". You feel the smile behind the tears. In Chevaux de bois, Vignoles plays lines that move in circles, while the voice part leaps up and down. The image of a merry-go-round, where wooden horses seem to prance when there's music. "Tournez, tournez", sings Piau with a hint of sorrow, for soon the fair will end. You can hear the chucrch bells toll  in the piano part and guess at what they mean.

Piau sang some of the Zemlinsky and Strauss songs she recorded a few years ago with pianist Susan Manoff.  This time they seemed livelier, perhaps because Vignoles's style differs from Manoff's. This specially benefits Zemlinsky. The brightness of Piau's timbre gives his songs a lift they don't often get. For various reasons, he's not well served on recording. Piau sang Richard Strauss's Mädchenblumen (op 22 1891) with similar grace and charm. Two Poulenc sets rounded off the evening : Deux Poèmes de Guillame Apollinaire (1938) and Deux Poèmes de Louis Aragon (1943). In Allons plus vite and Fêtes galante, Piau demonstrates impeccable diction at breakneck speed. The words busrts out like machine gun fire. Poulenc is taking aim at the complacent bourgeosie, shaking them out of their torpor. In the famous and very lovely song C, Piau and Vignoles are even more moving. "J'ai traversé les ponts de Cé", sings Piau recalling French history flowing like a river. "O ma France! O ma délaissée". France is occupied by the Germans. It's a cry of pain, a dose of harsh reality after all those fairy songs and flowers.

Full review here in Opera Today.

Sandrine Piau is the soloist in a special concert at the Wigmore Hall on 15th October with Ian Page and Classical Opera titled "Ruhe sanft : A Mozart Kaleidoscope". Be there.

 If you liked this concert you would have loved these Wigmore Hall concerts :  Véronique Gens : Massenet, Gounod..... Florian Boesch Die schone Mullerin........Werner Gura Schubert songs .....Sandrine Piau Schubert Transcribed.

Stotijn shines at the Wigmore Hall

Christianne Stotijn is back on good form again, with a very good recital at the Wigmore Hall on 18th October. Her confidence was thrown after Tamerlano at the Royal Opera House, when no-one could get their heads round a tyrant like Tamerlano being created by a womanly singer. In March her Wigmore Hall recital was a disappointment, but I'm delighted to say, she's bounced back.

Stotijn's voice is naturally warm and attractive, virtues which have made her a favourite with Bernard Haitink, for example. Fortunately, since March, she's been rethinking her technique, working on the centre of her voice so it's firmer and more assertive. She still has a tendency to rely on charm, which paid off in Gabriel Fauré's Cinq Mélodies "de Venise", where long lines flow langourously, like the mandolin in Mandoline. "Mystiques bacarolles, Romances sans paroles", where legato is more important than precise diction.

This was a well devised programme. For a change, Graham Johnson played solo Schumann's Intermezzo from Faschingsschwank aus Wien, continuing the gentle, good natured mood.  Sei frisch und fromm, und weider komm, goes the jaunty melody in Lied eines Schmeiden in the Schumann settings of Nikolas Lenau. Stotijn seemed invigorated. Nice, expressive depth in "aus dunkeln, tiefen Bronnen" (from the dark, deep well)  in Meine Rose. If the popular Die Sennin didn't quite come off,  Stotijn seemed to be saving herself for Requiem, not the choral Requiem op 148 but a more personal piano song. Stotijn's sensitive phrasing was dignnified and heartfelt. Schumann misjudged the date of Lenau's death, but his feelings were sincere.

Heartened, Stotijn seemed to relax more in the second part of the recital. Gone was the slight tightness in her delivery, replaced by more spontaneity. Ernest Chausson's Serres Chaudes evoke hothouse langour. But these are poems by Maeterlinck. Exotic perfumes hypnotise and lead to madness. Linger too long and you die. Stotijn cries out, breaking abruptly from the ennui. "Mon Dieu! Quand aurons-nous la pluie, et la neige, et la vent dans la serre!" Wonderful cycle, a French Wesendonck-Lieder.

Schumann's Aufträge op 77 no 5 (1850) with its lively pace brought out the best in Stotijn. Character songs give a singer a chance to think into "role", giving a bit more emotional space than intensely introspective material. Technique now fully absorbed, Stotijn could focus on expressiveness Nice, crisp enunciation.

Even livelier were the two Schumann Geibel Zigeunerliedchen from Lieder Album für die Jugend. The images here are murder, imprisonment, and treachery but the strophic form and bouncy piano part render the songs as genre pieces, rather than horror stories. Pairing them with Die Kartenlegerin (op 31 no 2) (Chamisso) was an excellent idea, for they continue the theme of "gypsy" exoticism but with a darker, more mysterious edge, which gives more emotional depth. While her mother sleeps, a girl steals a look at the cards, hoping to divine her future. Just as she gets excited, the girl sees an old crone. Is it her fate? No, it's mother who's woken up.  Humour, hope and despair, in the space of three minutes. Quite a test of a singer, and Stotijn succeeds.


photo credit : Marco Borggreve