Lieder recital at OZ (03.05.2004)
Selected songs by
Wilhelm Stenhammer, Bo Linde, Jean Sibelius, Hector Berlioz, Cecile Chaminade, Franz Schubert, Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler and Kurt Weill
Piano: Bengt Forsberg
Unlike the usual Lieder recitals at OZ, this concert was a full house event. Anne Sofie von Otter, in a simple deux-piece velvet dress in blue, gave one of most memorable recitals in my life. The first half of the evening was dedicated to Scandinavian and French composers and the second to the German. (I don’t know whether it’s an OZ tradition or not, but I rarely attended a Lieder recital at OZ without at least one or two German Lieder.) This was the first time I experienced von Otter live on stage. Her voice somehow sounded a bit dry (due to warm weather or just not in good shape?), not as full and rich as I’ve known from the recordings and the radio broadcasts. The dryness became rather evident when she sang high pianissimos, but the fortes were still solid and beautiful. To be very critical and honest, it’s a beautiful voice, but not an exceptional beautiful one. What makes her an exceptional Lieder interpreter is her incredible ability to shade her voice in every way she wants and her genuine understanding of the lyrics. Of course, a good diction is also necessary. Although the accent was audible, but every word was pronounced intelligibly, given its proper meaning and shaded with appropriate emotions. (Since I speak neither Swedish nor Finnish, so this was solely observed from her German, English and French.) Some Lieder were introduced briefly, but even without introduction, the way she sang them, accompanied with minimal gestures and mimics, made them not too hard to understand, well, at least on the emotional level. Whether it’s mellow sweetness of thinking about the loved ones or melancholic sadness or lamenting of past love, she always succeeded to generate this micro-cosmos of Lieder which fascinates me to no end.
Even though I didn’t know the lyric of the songs by Stenhammer, Linde and Sibelius, but I enjoyed them a lot. The Berlioz song (La mort d’Ophelie) was heartbreaking. The Chaminade songs were fun and sounded rather difficult to sing, specially “Ronde d’armour”, but musically, not really exceptional. The Schubert Lieder (Fruehlingsglaube, Im Fruehling, Die junge Nonne) were absolutely fabulous. Superb diction!! Every single word could be understood easily. The other German Lieder were just as impressive. One noticeable thing about the program of the evening was the Lieder by female composers. (Cecile Chaminade, Clara Schumann and Alma Mahler) The works of these very accomplished women are totally unknown to me. I specially like the works by Clara Schumann (Am Strande, Geheimes Fl&stern hier und dort) and Alma Mahler (Laue Sommernacht, Ansturm) which have this distinct female finesse that I’ve never known in Lieder before.
The highlight of the evening for me was the Kurt Weill Lieder (Nannas Lied, Seeraeuber Jenny, Speak low, foolish heart). They are great fun to listen to and were superbly well performed. Unlike some tacky opera-diva-sings-broadway-songs crossover performances, Von Otter and Forsberg have found the perfect balance between classical singing, art song and Jazz. It was sheer joy to listen to von Otter doing these songs. In “Seeraeuber Jenny” she actually managed to express certain vulgar cruelty of pirate Jenny from her gracious self which was amazing and unexpected. (Of course, she was not as scary as Nina Simone;-) As encores, she sang two more English songs which’s name I didn’t catch and one very jazzy Swedish dance song. That was a classic Jazz singing she did in her last song. At one point, I even thought, only if she would/could climb onto the piano and finish the song a la Michelle Pfeiffer. That would be really fun and what a way to end a Lieder recital. ;-P
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