United States Various: Lawrence Brownlee (tenor), Kevin J. Miller (piano). San Francisco Performances, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, 29.2.2024. (HS)
Joseph Marx – ‘Nocturne’; ‘Selige Nacht’; ‘Die Elfe’; ‘Christbaum’; ‘Hat dich die Liebe berührt’
From ‘Rising’:
Jasmine Barnes – ‘Peace’
Jeremiah Evans – ‘April Song’
Brandon Spencer – ‘I Know My Soul’
Carlos Simon – ‘Vocalise III’
Damien Sneed – ‘Beauty That Is Never Old’; ‘The Gift to Sing’
Shawn E. Okpebholo – ‘Romance’
Joel Thompson – ‘My People’
Verdi – ‘Ad una stella’; ‘La donna è mobile’ from Rigoletto
Donizetti – ‘Me voglio fa’na casa’; ‘Allegro io son’ from Rita
Rossini – ‘La lontananza’; ‘D’ogni piu sacro impegno’ from L’occasione fa il ladro
Bellini – ‘La ricordanza’; ‘Nel furor delle tempeste’ from Il pirata
Tenor Lawrence Brownlee apologized several times to the audience at his San Francisco Performances recital. He had just flown in from performing in the United Arab Emirates and explained, ‘I think I left my voice on the airplane’.
Maybe it felt that way to him, but the ringing high notes rang out with authority in a wide-ranging program in which his singing became increasingly pliable and assured as the evening progressed. And quite a program it was, challenging both musically and vocally for Brownlee, but tasty as could be for listeners.
Beginning with a somewhat stilted set of songs by the early-twentieth-century German composer Joseph Marx, he found his stride in a collection of new songs he commissioned from young African-American composers. The evening culminated with a refreshing dip into iconic bel canto composers; for each one, he paired a song with an aria.
For me, the new songs were the most revelatory, chosen from his ‘Rising’ project, in which the tenor asked composers to set music to their choice of poems by giants of the Harlem Renaissance. Their musical styles reflected their individuality, from the energetic, jazz-infused work of Carlos Simon (onetime composer in residence at the Kennedy Center in Washington) to the lushly Romantic style of Damien Sneed (who was composer in residence at Houston Grand Opera).
Those two composers crafted music with the most comfortable vocal fit. Simon’s ‘Vocalise III’ teemed with rhythmic vitality, somehow making the percussive nonsense phrases feel totally right in Brownlee’s voice in what felt like scatting within classical structure. Sneed’s lush settings of two James Weldon Johnson poems – a polished ‘Beauty That Is Never Old’ and a jaunty ‘The Gift to Sing’ – fell into place easily with Brownless’s vocalization.
Jasmine Barnes created lovely melisma on the repeated word ‘Peace’ in her setting of Georgia Douglas Johnson’s fervent pleas in her poem of the same name. Brandon Spencer, who won a George Shirley Composition Award, found declamatory style for Claude McKay’s ‘I Know My Soul’. Shawn E. Okpebholo, a music professor at Wheaton College Conservatory, created a mood somewhere between seduction and ambiguity in McKay’s ‘Romance’.
‘My People’ ended the suite in a lively setting by Joel Thompson of the Langston Hughes poem’s terse vernacular litany of working-class individuals. The piano part in this one, as happened in some of the others, cast a bright spotlight on pianist Kevin J. Miller. He zeroed in on each composer’s style with precision. He and Brownlee seemed to enjoy the musical ride together.
After the intermission, the music turned to bel canto, and the tenor was in his wheelhouse. He has excelled with Rossini and Donizetti in most of the top-tier opera houses around the world, and his interpretations were spot-on. The program brilliantly paired a song with an aria from each composer.
First up was Verdi, who started out as a bel canto composer. He was represented here by a song written in 1845, ‘Ad una stella’ (‘To a Star’), and an aria, the oh-so-familiar ‘La donna è mobile’ from Rigoletto, his first huge hit (1851).
Good as that was, it was just a warm-up for what came next. Donizetti was represented by a couple of rarities. In the song ‘Me voglio fa’na casa’ and the aria ’Allegro io son’ (from the seldom-heard Rita), Brownlee captured the lilt and wit in the composer’s style, especially in the aria where the character declares his delight to be free of his wife.
The song ‘La lontananza’ (‘The Distance’) – from a late-in-life collection written long after Rossini retired from writing operas – reflected his poignant style with serious emotions. The aria, ‘D’ogni piu sacro impegno’ (‘Let all Faith be Broken’), from ‘L’occasione fa il ladro’, an early opera, teemed with the composer’s signature light-hearted sarcasm.
Best of all were the two Bellini works. Brownlee lavished sweetness and lovely legato on ‘La ricordanza’ (‘Recollection’), delicious with melodic beauty. Finishing off the program, the challenging coloratura and climactic high notes in ’Nel furor delle tempeste’ from Il pirata emerged bravely and beautifully.
Exhausted as the tenor seemed, he rallied for a rousing encore, Walter Hawkins’s ‘Come By Here, Good Lord’, in a pianistically elaborate arrangement by Damien Sneed that supported passionate, come-to-Jesus singing from Brownlee.
Harvey Steiman