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Recital
15 March 2007
Herbst Theatre, San Francisco
Gerald Finley
Julius Drake
Robert Schumann:
· Dichterliebe
o Im wunderschönen Monat Mai
o Aus meinen Tränen sprießen
o Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne
o Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’
o Ich will meine Seele tauchen
o Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome
o Ich grolle nicht
o Und wüßten’s die Blumen
o Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen
o Hör ich das Liedchen klingen
o Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen
o Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen
o Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet
o Allnächtlich im Traume seh’ ich dich
o Aus alten Märchen winkt es
o Die alten, bösen Lieder
Interval
Charles Ives
o Ich grolle nicht
o Feldeinsamkeit
o Swimmers
o The Housatonicat Stockbridge
o Ann Street
o The Cage
o Tom Sails Away
o 1, 2, 3
Ned Rorem :
· War Scenes
o A Night Battle
o Specimen Case
o An Incident
o Inauguration Ball
o The Real War Will Never Get In the Books
Samuel Barber
o There's Nae Lark
o In the Dark Pinewood
o The Beggar's Song
· Three Songs, Op. 10
o Rain Has Fallen
o Sleep Now
o I Hear an Army
Encores:
Charles Ives
· Memories:
o a. Very Pleasant
o b. Rather Sad
What the critics say
Georgia Rowe, Oakland Tribune, 17 March 2007
Finley turns opera recital into superb house call Finley's debut
Bay area audiences got their first taste of Gerald Finley's vocal artistry in 2005, when he created the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer in the world premiere of John Adams' "Doctor Atomic" for San Francisco Opera. Singing the part of the brilliant, but tormented, father of the atomic bomb, the Canadian bass-baritone was unforgettable. Thursday evening at the Herbst Theatre, Finley was back in the city to make his local recital debut for San Francisco Performances.
Accompanied by pianist Julius Drake, he sang music by Robert Schumann, Charles Ives, Ned Rorem and Samuel Barber; if the results weren't as consistent as his work on the opera stage, he still managed to demonstrate that he's an artist of impressive vocal and dramatic skills.
The same qualities that were so strikingly evident in Finley's "Doctor Atomic" appearance -- rich, rounded tone and a clear, forthright style of phrasing - were employed to best effect in the songs by Ives, Rorem and Barber performed in the second half. Although he's often associated with Mozart roles, particularly Don Giovanni and Figaro, Finley seemed most at home in these settings in his native language. The set of Ives songs proved an especially congenial fit for his direct, emphatic approach. With the first, "I bear no grudge," it was apparent that the printed texts were superfluous; Finley articulated the words with exquisite clarity and keen dramatic intent.
In the songs that followed -- "From 'The Swimmers,'" The Housatonic at Stockbridge," The Side Show" and "The Greatest Man" -- he showed himself equally adept at putting the texts across. The high point was "Tom Sails Away," a tenderly evocative remembrance of a brother departing for war in a distant land. "1,2,3" closed the set on a brief, enigmatic note.
Images of battle and loss pervaded Rorem's "War Scenes" as well. The five songs of the cycle incorporate texts from Walt Whitman's "Specimen Days," which detailed the great poet's experiences as a Union Army nurse in the final years of the Civil War. The texts are harrowing -- a dying soldier's last moments, a closeup of a battle by moonlight, the contrast between a genteel ball and the bloody casualties in the field -- and Rorem's settings are alternately stark and disconcertingly nostalgic. Finley, with sensitive support from Drake, put them across with devastating simplicity.
The set of Barber settings - including the haunting "Three Songs," based on poems by James Joyce - offered a measure of respite. Finley gave each one an elegant reading.
Still, many in the audience came to hear Finley sing Schumann's "Dichterliebe," and the performance in the recital's first half suggested that the composer's Romantic song cycle remains a work in progress for this singer.
"Dichterliebe," which takes the listener on the journey of a love affair from its dizzy start to its heartbreaking finish, is a delicate construction; here, Finley's vigorous approach seemed to blunt the impact of the music. There were moments of beauty - a tender "When I look into your eyes," an enveloping "Nightly in my dreams" - but they were just moments; missing throughout was a sense of the narrator's fragile state, or the line tracing his progression from ecstasy to sorrow to the depths of despair. It didn't help that the performance was interrupted several times by ringing cell phones and beeping watch alarms.
All was well, however, in the single encore. Finley and Drake returned with Ives' Memories A (Very Pleasant) and B (Rather Sad) in a breathtaking performance that brought forth the full measure of the song's lyrical charms.