In the 1960s and '70s, there were almost seemingly as many small theater
groups in San Francisco as restaurants.  By the 00's (we still don't
have a name for this decade?), piccolo teatro somewhat subsided, but
chamber-music groups proliferated greatly, often outstripping audience
demand.

The more the merrier, however, and there is a new one, making its first
appearance tonight in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Chamber Music San Francisco has some heavy hitters as it enters the
Bay Area music fray: Smuin Ballet executive director Daniel Levenstein,
violist Elizabeth Prior Runnicles, and San Francisco Symphony music
administrator Peter Gruenberg.  The first season will feature Runnicles,
the Jupiter Trio, and the St.  Lawrence String Quartet, among others.

Opening night featured soprano Laura Aikin in her US recital debut.  She
is certain to be described in every upcoming review as the all-blue angel
with one wing in the San Francisco Opera's 2002 "Saint Francois d'Assise."
There is good reason for that identification - unlike the sorry spectacle
of acres of unending copy about Deborah Voigt's little black dress -
because it was a memorable performance and a major appearance in this
country for the American singer whose entire career has been in Europe.

Tonight's venue, the Florence Gould Theater, is an intimate, 300-seat,
circular hall, where proverbial (or even real) pins dropped on stage
could be heard clearly everywhere.  It's definitely not the War Memorial
Opera House, but Aikin didn't seem to factor in the difference.  Initially,
her accompanist, Donald Sulzen, was producing even more volume, fairly
shaking the walls, but he eventually settled down to a more appropriate
balance.

Aikin, who has had an impressive operatic career, is not a natural
recitalist.  With her slight resemblance (from a great distance, and one
eye closed) to Barbara Bonney, a comparison came to mind, and it was not
in Aikin's favor.  The two voices may have similar excellence and weight,
but Aikin's diction and communication with the audience suffer in
comparison.

The singing tonight was "good" (not a false note all evening), but it
did not reach out, involve, move.  It's a rather subjective matter, but
most audience members at a recital by Bonney feel she sings to them.
Aikin's eyes, projection, communication all went to a neutral, safe place
somewhere near the ceiling, not to thee or me, although I can be certain
only about me.

Diction in six Brahms, five Schumann, and four Richard Strauss lieder
was fair-to-middling, but the Sylvia Plath text in Ned Rorem's "Ariel"
and e.e.  cummings' poems in Dominick Argento's "Songs About Spring"
were mushy-to-obscure, even in the small hall with the great acoustics.

The problem was not just with diction, but - again - with the lack of
communications.  Just as you hear better when you see the source of
music, you understand words more readily when you're engaged and "reach
in." That was not the case this time.  A good voice, an accurate singer,
but the extras that make a recital special were missing.

Engaging, vital musical beauty was clearly in evidence with the arrival
of Carey Bell, the SF Opera's principal clarinetist, who came to assist
in Schubert's "The Shepherd on the Rock," but became the star of the
performance.  The thin, tall, impossibly young musician (graduated from
Ann Arbor in 1997, so he may still be under 30) played with such verve
and warmth that the entire performance took flight, both Aikin and Sulzen
giving their best of the evening.  One can only hope for a concert with
Bell the next season.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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