VANCOUVER — Whether it was planned or just a serendipitous aligning of available dates, the Vancouver Recital Society offered back-to-back weekend programs of exceptional vocal music: a Vancouver premiere by soprano-conductor Barbara Hannigan with pianist Bertrand Chamayou (Nov. 30) and then a showcase for Hila Baggio and the Israeli Chamber Project the following afternoon (Dec. 1).
Hannigan hails from Canada’s Maritime region and is based mainly in northern Europe, where she is principal guest conductor of Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony and will soon become chief conductor and artistic director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Given her near-cult status, the fact that she had never conducted or sung in Vancouver before is something of a puzzle. In any case, her recital in the University of British Columbia’s Chan Centre proved to be the standout event of a staid and conventional fall season.
The first performance was a no-intermission affair. Hannigan and Chamayou chose Messiaen’s Chants de terre et de ciel (1938) to launch the program, followed by two pieces by Scriabin as a solo showcase for Chamayou — and then came John Zorn’s more recent Jumalattare. Messiaen-Scriabin-Zorn make strange bedfellows, but the program’s arc worked well, offering no encore to water down its effect on a cheering audience.
The Vancouver Recital Society is one of many musical organizations that now eschew printed programs. Instead, it offers detailed notes online, a pragmatic post-pandemic proposition that is satisfactory in most circumstances. Yet for Messian’s songs, I would have preferred surtitles or printed texts, because the fascinating complexities demanded access to the words in both French and English.
Beyond that quibble, the duo produced an enchanting effect with the six songs, prompted by the birth of the composer’s son — three songs dealing with domestic matters and three contemplating things spiritual. Chamayou displayed an exemplary understanding of the Messiaen idiom. In October, the VRS audience was wowed by Tamara Stefanovich’s fiercely intense performance of Messiaen’s solo keyboard pieces. Chamayou’s approach was more restrained but no less powerful, even in the large auditorium of Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. His glittering high-register work always carried, including at a whispered dynamic; his ability to create a palette of colors appropriate for the complex, rich musical ideas was extraordinary.
Hannigan negotiated Messiaen’s often quirky melodic lines and rhythms with surefooted ease. A particularly effective gambit had her utter a note — almost imperceptibly merging it with the haze of a lingering piano sonority — then allowing her sound to blossom into a full forte. The effect was thoroughly memorable.
Chamayou’s renderings of Scriabin’s Poème-nocturne, Op. 61 (1911), and Vers la flamme, Op. 72 (1914), were no less impressive. No mere token interlude for a co-recitalist, the Scriabin set was a rare delight and as much a program highlight as the earlier song cycle.
Zorn’s Jumalattaret, premiered by Hannigan in 2018, rounded out the program as a spectacular vehicle for female voice. Virtuoso showpieces, be they Paganini, Liszt, or Zorn, are designed to leave an audience gasping with delighted astonishment at how various effects can be drawn from the performer’s bag of tricks. Looking too closely at the musical magic isn’t the point; the effect in the hall is all that matters.
Zorn’s work is nowhere near the equal of the Messiaen or Scriabin. His multi-section setting of texts drawn from the Finnish Kalevala is incomprehensible to those who don’t speak the language, and probably to most who do. (As the VRS’s program note writer told us, “The singer channels a Sami goddess, whispering the text or delivering it in a wordless vocalise.”) Jumalattaret is about two-thirds amiable ostinatos-cum-vamps, with various extended techniques for singer and keyboard producing fireworks.
Hannigan is unquestionably our reigning new-music diva. The heavy lifting of the program came early, and the Zorn was perhaps a commercially motivated choice for North American audiences who might not have embraced Ligeti or Kurtág with particular enthusiasm. Well, why not? The duo set out to entertain, and an ecstatic audience was left wanting more.
The following afternoon we were back in VRS ground zero at the more intimate Vancouver Playhouse for music from the early 20th century with the Israeli Chamber Project and soprano Hila Baggio. Whimsically billed as “Two Clowns: Pierrot meets Petrouchka,” the program consisted of exceptional works from the early 20th century. Its core was a semi-staged performance of Pierrot Lunaire in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth. Before that, six instrumentalists essayed music from Stravinsky’s Petrouchka and Ravel’s La valse.
It might seem mere hubris to even think of adapting these grand, coloristic works from the orchestral repertoire for the smaller forces of violin, cello, flute, clarinet(s), harp, and piano. Not at all: Yuval Shapiro’s arrangements proved breathtaking. His feel for color combinations and his ability to bring out telling details are uncanny. His masterly work is no bargain-basement facsimile of the larger orchestral originals; rather, Shapiro creates vibrant new renderings of the scores, allowing us to hear facets of the familiar music in fresh and thoroughly exciting ways. (That the hardworking instrumentalists are fine players is also part of the magic.)
During the intermission, the stage was dressed with a few props, plus an overhead screen for surtitles; titles of the various numbers and texts were there to be understood but never obtrusive. The quintet — there is no harp in Schoenberg’s classic score, though had he heard the wonderfully resonant playing of Sivan Magen, he might well have reconsidered — entered the stage in near darkness, and Baggio appeared in a sort of post-modern clown outfit, a bit eccentric but nothing outlandish. A modicum of lighting effects and a bit of drifting smoke (without mirrors, though) enhanced the atmosphere.
Baggio performed here in 2022 with the Jerusalem String Quartet in a set of Polish cabaret songs. On this occasion, she was charged with the Sprechstimme part in Pierrot Lunaire. Baggio’s notion of the score is more sung than spoken, something of a departure from conventional performances. Her approach emphasizes the edgy lyricism of Schoenberg’s writing over its Expressionistic extravagances. The result was impressive and often hauntingly beautiful, with the Beckett-like staging contributing continuity and coherence to the work. Props amounted to a park bench, a sort of stepladder, and a few bits of costume, nothing more. Shirit Lee Weiss’ restrained stage direction was always purposeful, never over the top. One wonderful moment had flutist Guy Eshed leave his cadre of musicians to join the singer on the park bench, a small gesture of austere theatricality — so much effect from such simplicity.
No serious listener can be unaware of the iconic status of Schoenberg’s 1912 masterwork, but the combination of a wonderfully committed singer-speaker and consistently first-rate instrumental playing formed the rock-solid basis for the project’s success. Weiss’ minimal but completely effective staging made the whole that much more enjoyable. This was no dutiful homage but an electrifying re-consideration of a masterpiece from more than a century ago — a work that, in the hands of these excellent performers, sounded both timeless and as fresh and vital as anything composed yesterday.
