“When your instrument is in your physique, it doesn’t all the time do what you need.”
This what the South African soprano Golda Schultz informed the New York Philharmonic viewers on Friday evening. As a result of hay fever and allergy symptoms, in addition to ongoing restoration from bronchitis, Schultz defined, she must cut back this system from three items to 2.
It felt like déjà vu. On Wednesday evening, Schultz, in the identical black-and-bronze gown, had made an identical announcement, as I listened from practically the identical seat. Schultz had defined that “The Bushes on the Mountain” from Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah required an excessive amount of vocal “delicacy”; She was unable to do it justice. Schultz remained poised and witty: “I hope you’re right here for different causes.”
With out the Floyd, that left Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer season of 1915, in addition to “No Phrase from Tom” from Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, neither precisely simple. These two items collectively made up about half-hour of a two-hour program, which had additionally included Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Query and a demanding new work by George Lewis with the experimental ensemble Yarn and Wire.
When a singer makes such an announcement, it’s exhausting to not hear, even subconsciously, for indicators of sickness. On Wednesday evening, I seen one thing subdued about her sound, significantly within the Barber, like a swimmer hovering just under the water’s floor. All through, conductor Kwame Ryan supported her with the orchestra. However Schultz’s portion of this system that evening glided by all too shortly, and I wasn’t certain if I may belief my impressions.
Reviewing any efficiency, not to mention a vocal efficiency, is, in some methods, an unfair job. It’s a valuation, of kinds, of a singer on a given day, at a singular time limit. Moreover, voices are fickle, impacted by well being, or by sleep. Our our bodies are fragile devices. I made a decision to return to the Philharmonic on Friday evening and write one thing extra holistic.
I need to admit, although, that on Thursday, I couldn’t resist re-listening to Leontyne Worth’s recording of Barber’s Knoxville. The piece is a setting of a prose poem by James Agee recalling a summer time evening from his childhood mendacity on quilts unfold over the dew-damp grass. The poem is within the voice of a five-year-old little one: “All my persons are bigger our bodies than mine.” However the speaker has data of mortality past his years: “Might God bless my folks… my mom, my good father… within the hour of their taking away.” Worth’s rendition of Knoxville is nearly straight-toned; She actually appears like a younger boy.
Schultz’s interpretation on Friday evening was womanlier, her vibrato like a tightly wound coil. I puzzled if there may have been extra vocal distinction within the fraught center part. (Was she nervous about imperfections being attributed to allergy symptoms?) However her interpretation was in any other case stuffed with word-painting: “folks go by, issues go by” tossed away; “casually” pronounced within the vernacular. All through, Schultz confirmed loads of delicacy.
The Stravinsky was, character-wise, an excellent higher match for Schultz. (You would additionally inform that she has carried out this opera lately, with Paris Opera.) Singing “Quietly, evening” above a churning orchestra, Schultz appeared like the right Neoclassical, Mozartian tragic heroine. On Friday evening, she admirably navigated recitative-like sections and twisting ornaments to a dramatic conclusion. However on Wednesday evening, that ultimate be aware — a excessive C on “coronary heart” — was like an arrow hitting a bullseye.
