May 12, 2001
MUSIC REVIEW
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: Vulnerable, but With Force
By ANNE MIDGETTE / NYTimes
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is a singing artist, a rare breed. She
not only sings beautifully but her luminous interpretations truly
communicate as well, without contrivance.
An upper note in a mother's lament, "Vieni, o figlio" from Handel's
"Ottone," demonstrates absolute, quiet vulnerability. In Schumann's
"Ich kann's nicht fassen" from the cycle "Frauenlieben und-leben,"
a similar climax rings out resoundingly with glowing force. At her
recital on Sunday afternoon at Alice Tully Hall, even this oft-visited
cycle took on real significance.
The program's dramaturgy was also carefully thought out. Each of
the three groupings - two Handel arias, three songs and an aria from
the opera "Ashoka's Dream" by the mezzo-soprano's husband, Peter
Lieberson, and finally the Schumann - presented a contrast between
romantic love and maternal love.
After the Schumann cycle's culmination in death, all three encores
stayed on concept.
Mr. Lieberson's Rilke songs, three of a cycle of five written for
his wife, were a highlight. Although the poetry is not conventionally
romantic, they certainly sound like love songs, not least because
Ms. Hunt Lieberson's voice opened up in a new richness of warmth
and color from the first notes of "O ihr Zartlichen."
She is a born lieder singer, and Mr. Lieberson has created some
contemporary German lieder. Respecting the words' profundity,
intricacy and natural rhythm, his music here is also tinged with a
German Romantic tonality, shades of Strauss and Wagner, particularly
in the opening invocation of "Atmen, du unsichtbares Gedicht!" and
its concluding fourths. Judith Gordon, the accompanist, played with
a lissome touch: sometimes slightly cloying, more often gently
supple.
Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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