In Dreamscape Concert, French Maestro Weaves Legends And Mysteries

0
90
The 40-year-old French countertenor-turned-conductor Raphaël Pichon made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. (Photos by Jennifer Taylor)

NEW YORK — Something unusual was clearly afoot at Carnegie Hall from the moment one walked into the Jan. 23 Orchestra of St. Luke’s concert titled “Mein Traum.” Lighting levels were almost too low to read the program, which lacked English translations for sung texts, though a bright, clear surtitle screen made sure that even the visually impaired missed nothing. Such atmospheric considerations aren’t radical at Carnegie but were needed at Raphaël Pichon’s New York debut. This lanky, 40-year-old French countertenor-turned-conductor, who carries himself with an air of expectant fun, is one of the best-established figures in the European early-music community with repertoire hovering around Monteverdi, Cavalli, and Mozart.

The meticulously curated program — 90 minutes, no intermission, and based on Pichon’s recent Mein Traum album on Harmonia Mundi — was built around lesser-known arias and choruses by Schubert, Weber, and Schumann, drawing on phantasmagorical legends that needed a certain altered reality in the hall itself. Schubert, in his wanderer mode, was the main jumping-off point for the program’s three subheadings, “Threnes” (lamentations the dead), “Mirages,” and, finally, “Death and Transfiguration,” all meant to operate on multiple levels.

Soprano Ying Fang was one of the soloists with Raphaël Pichon and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

The paradisiacal voice of soprano Ying Fang opened the program with Schubert’s ethereal “Lacrimosa son io,” D. 131b, sung from the upper tiers of the hall. Baritone Christian Gerhaher was rooted onstage for his songs and arias, sung with his usual high-tension vocalism. Pichon’s highly theatrical manner with this early Romantic-era music came from a cultivated understanding, not just of what the music is but of what meaning could be when reframed. Of the 16 pieces on the playlist-style program, quite decentralized by standards of the typical overture/concerto/symphony format, 12 were by Schubert (several adapted by the likes of Brahms and Liszt) sequenced in roughly chronological order, spanning 1815 to 1825. The concert contextualized unfinished works (the oratorio Lazarus, D. 689, and the famous Symphony No. 8) as part of a larger flow of musical thought.

Schubert’s chilling song “Doppelgänger” ushered in the ominous opening of the Eighth Symphony, whose two movements were separated by a placid mermaid aria from Weber’s Oberon. Following Schubert’s second movement was Schumann’s choral song “The Mermaid,” sung by Ensemble Altera. While the sequencing of the works showed Schubert’s artistic progression and what other composers around him were doing, the symphony gave weight to the figures of legend: These weren’t harmless spook stories but cautionary tales of mermaids leading men to their death — just as some real-life Lorelei gave Schubert the syphilis that made his life an unfinished symphony. On a musical level, the symphony’s conclusion dovetailed into the eerily diffused manner of Schumann’s mermaids. The effect was startling. Other connections were there to be found, leading to “Here the view is free,” an aria from Schumann’s Faust, sung by Doctor Marianus (Gerhaher) as Faust goes to heaven.

Baritone Christian Gerhaher sang songs and arias.

What was Schubert’s “Ave Maria” doing in the middle of the concert? No doubt there was a reason, but if nothing else something simple, sublime, and familiar was needed, especially when sung with Fang’s vocal purity and fresh attention to the words. And what more can be said about the durable Gerhaher, whose vocal coloring, linguistic intelligence, and go-for-broke commitment go straight to one’s soul. The solid, 52-piece, modern-instrument Orchestra of St. Luke’s had much of the razor-sharp cutting power of Pichon’s own Europe-based period-instrument Pygmalion ensemble in a total package prompting a level of audience engagement that allowed “My Dream” to become our dream. I’ll be surprised if I hear a more absorbing concert this season.

Postscript: Pichon has reportedly been invited by the orchestra for next season at Carnegie. I’d love for him to bring his superb soprano wife Sabine Devieilhe with him.