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AberdeenNews.com, South Dakota
March 4 2012
Soprano puts her heritage proudly on display in wide-ranging song recital
by John von Rhein, Classical music critic
7:45 a.m. CST, March 4, 2012
Isabel Bayrakdarian has been a much-admired fixture of the Lyric Opera
roster over the last decade, having sung roles ranging from Mozart's
Susanna and Zerlina, to Catherine in William Bolcom's "A View from the
Bridge," to Blanche de la Force in Poulenc's "Dialogues of the
Carmelites," her most recent assumption here, in 2007.
Oddly enough, no local concert impresario during that time saw fit to
present the Canadian-based soprano in recital, despite the warm
reception she has won elsewhere in the song medium. The University of
Chicago Presents series made amends Friday night in Mandel Hall, where
Bayrakdarian, along with her husband and pianist, Serouj Kradjian,
presented a song recital that well displayed the breadth of her vocal
and interpretive accomplishment.
Bayrakdarian and Kradjian both are of Armenian descent, and the main
item on the second half of her interestingly offbeat program found
them honoring their heritage with four Armenian folk song arrangements
by the composer revered in his homeland as, simply, Gomidas.
A priest, conductor, singer and ethnomusicologist, Gomidas (or Komitas
Vardepet, as the New Grove Dictionary spells his name) collected and
arranged countless Armenian folk songs around the turn of the 20th
century, before his career and sanity were shattered by the massacre
of Armenians in Turkey in 1915. Although he managed to escape the
genocide, he spent the final 20 years of his life in a mental hospital
outside Paris.
Bayrakdarian's Gomidas sampler varied from patriotic songs to love
songs, all touched with lingering melancholy, even the dulcet lullaby,
"Oror," which the soprano said she often sings to the couple's young
son, Ari. Her close identification with the emotions behind the simple
modal melodies brought her warmest singing of the evening. The softly
sustained final notes of "Apricot Tree" made a particularly haunting
effect.
Alluring in a ruffled black taffeta gown (the first of two designer
dresses she wore for this recital), the singer began with Liszt's "The
Three Gypsies" and two Petrarch sonnets. These were the least
successful entries of the evening, not because Bayrakdarian is a poor
storyteller but because she seemed to misjudge the carrying power of
her voice. Her bright sound took on a hard, penetrating edge that
faded once the voice had warmed and the singer had grown accustomed to
the acoustics.
Bayrakdarian closed the first portion of her program with three
selections inspired by Shakespeare's Ophelia. She brought a luminous,
floating vocal quality to Chausson's "Chanson perpetuelle" that suited
the wistful setting of a Charles Cros poem about a betrayed woman who
contemplates an Ophelia-like suicide by drowning. Delicate melancholy
also characterizes Berlioz's "La mort d'Ophelie," for which the
singer's rapt, dreamy treatment felt just right.
Jake Heggie's lyrical and accessible "Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia"
(1999), based on poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, benefited from
Bayrakdarian's wide range of expressive shadings and the crystalline
clarity of her English diction. Indeed, her enunciation throughout the
program, whether the language was French, German, Italian or Spanish,
was exemplary.
Singer and pianist got to figuratively kick up their heels - not to
mention click imaginary castanets - in the concluding Spanish group.
There were four songs by Fernando Obradors, including the well-known
"El Vito," delivered with abundant charm and an earthier tonal palette
than Bayrakdarian allowed herself earlier in the program.
Kradjian attacked with gusto the driving rhythms of Osvaldo Golijov's
"Levante" before joining his wife for a spicy assortment of
tango-songs by Carlos Gardel and Astor Piazzolla. The former
composer's "El Dia que me quieras" Bayrakdarian brought to life with
plenty of temperament as she alternately sang and spoke the verses.
Piazzolla's cabaret song "Che tango che," its down-and-dirty
word-play, punctuated by percussive effects from the pianist, made for
a fun finish.
Bayrakdarian kept things in the Latin vein for the first of two
encores, Ernesto Lecuona's "Malaguena," before signing off with a bit
of connubial one-upmanship in an amusing rendition of Rossini's "Cat
Duet," complete with muted "meows" from her spouse.
http://www.aberdeennews.com/entertainment/ct-ent-0305-bayrakdarian-review-20120305,0,6420157.column
March 4 2012
Soprano puts her heritage proudly on display in wide-ranging song recital
by John von Rhein, Classical music critic
7:45 a.m. CST, March 4, 2012
Isabel Bayrakdarian has been a much-admired fixture of the Lyric Opera
roster over the last decade, having sung roles ranging from Mozart's
Susanna and Zerlina, to Catherine in William Bolcom's "A View from the
Bridge," to Blanche de la Force in Poulenc's "Dialogues of the
Carmelites," her most recent assumption here, in 2007.
Oddly enough, no local concert impresario during that time saw fit to
present the Canadian-based soprano in recital, despite the warm
reception she has won elsewhere in the song medium. The University of
Chicago Presents series made amends Friday night in Mandel Hall, where
Bayrakdarian, along with her husband and pianist, Serouj Kradjian,
presented a song recital that well displayed the breadth of her vocal
and interpretive accomplishment.
Bayrakdarian and Kradjian both are of Armenian descent, and the main
item on the second half of her interestingly offbeat program found
them honoring their heritage with four Armenian folk song arrangements
by the composer revered in his homeland as, simply, Gomidas.
A priest, conductor, singer and ethnomusicologist, Gomidas (or Komitas
Vardepet, as the New Grove Dictionary spells his name) collected and
arranged countless Armenian folk songs around the turn of the 20th
century, before his career and sanity were shattered by the massacre
of Armenians in Turkey in 1915. Although he managed to escape the
genocide, he spent the final 20 years of his life in a mental hospital
outside Paris.
Bayrakdarian's Gomidas sampler varied from patriotic songs to love
songs, all touched with lingering melancholy, even the dulcet lullaby,
"Oror," which the soprano said she often sings to the couple's young
son, Ari. Her close identification with the emotions behind the simple
modal melodies brought her warmest singing of the evening. The softly
sustained final notes of "Apricot Tree" made a particularly haunting
effect.
Alluring in a ruffled black taffeta gown (the first of two designer
dresses she wore for this recital), the singer began with Liszt's "The
Three Gypsies" and two Petrarch sonnets. These were the least
successful entries of the evening, not because Bayrakdarian is a poor
storyteller but because she seemed to misjudge the carrying power of
her voice. Her bright sound took on a hard, penetrating edge that
faded once the voice had warmed and the singer had grown accustomed to
the acoustics.
Bayrakdarian closed the first portion of her program with three
selections inspired by Shakespeare's Ophelia. She brought a luminous,
floating vocal quality to Chausson's "Chanson perpetuelle" that suited
the wistful setting of a Charles Cros poem about a betrayed woman who
contemplates an Ophelia-like suicide by drowning. Delicate melancholy
also characterizes Berlioz's "La mort d'Ophelie," for which the
singer's rapt, dreamy treatment felt just right.
Jake Heggie's lyrical and accessible "Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia"
(1999), based on poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, benefited from
Bayrakdarian's wide range of expressive shadings and the crystalline
clarity of her English diction. Indeed, her enunciation throughout the
program, whether the language was French, German, Italian or Spanish,
was exemplary.
Singer and pianist got to figuratively kick up their heels - not to
mention click imaginary castanets - in the concluding Spanish group.
There were four songs by Fernando Obradors, including the well-known
"El Vito," delivered with abundant charm and an earthier tonal palette
than Bayrakdarian allowed herself earlier in the program.
Kradjian attacked with gusto the driving rhythms of Osvaldo Golijov's
"Levante" before joining his wife for a spicy assortment of
tango-songs by Carlos Gardel and Astor Piazzolla. The former
composer's "El Dia que me quieras" Bayrakdarian brought to life with
plenty of temperament as she alternately sang and spoke the verses.
Piazzolla's cabaret song "Che tango che," its down-and-dirty
word-play, punctuated by percussive effects from the pianist, made for
a fun finish.
Bayrakdarian kept things in the Latin vein for the first of two
encores, Ernesto Lecuona's "Malaguena," before signing off with a bit
of connubial one-upmanship in an amusing rendition of Rossini's "Cat
Duet," complete with muted "meows" from her spouse.
http://www.aberdeennews.com/entertainment/ct-ent-0305-bayrakdarian-review-20120305,0,6420157.column