December 15, 2005 Issue                                                              

©2005 The Chestnut Hill Local

G’twn native gives audience ‘grand old time’
by Michael Caruso

CONCERT FOR THE EARTH: “Missa Gaia,” or Earth Mass, will be performed on Sunday, Dec. 18, 7 p.m., at the First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St. Jane Hulting will lead 3 local church choirs, as well as Best of Philly dance band winner Kenny Ulansey (seen here) on clarinet. This celebration of mother earth also features the recorded “voices” of wolf, whale and loon. For more information, call 215-563-3980 ext. 315.

Philadelphia sparkled with musical variety this past weekend. Our orchestral neighbor to the north, the New York Philharmonic, paid local music lovers a visit and brought back former Germantown resident, Andre Watts, as its piano soloist. The Academy of Vocal Arts presented an intriguing “Evening of Russian Romances” in which a locally bred tenor from the Northeast made a powerful impact, and the Philadelphia Orchestra was joined by the Philadelphia Singers Chorale and four vocal soloists to give its annual performances of Handel’s Messiah.

With an international career now reaching into its fifth decade, Andre Watts remains one of the piano world’s most dazzling virtuosi. Owning a digital technique that is both effortless and scintillating and a personal presence that defines charisma, Watts’ technical brilliance and interpretive character continue to hold their own against the competition of pianists less than half his age as well as his contemporaries.

Watts’ secret lies in his realization that the notes on the printed page are only the means to an end. Music is something more than just the score, which is merely the road map that enables the performer to guide his audience to the essence of the music. By not concentrating on striking every key as directed but, instead, keeping his inner eye focused on the emotional kernel of the composer’s aural concept, Watts not only achieves a fuller identification with that concept but manages to adhere to textural accuracy far more faithfully than many who mistakenly make the rendering of each and every printed note their sole endeavor.

Watts’ vehicle Friday night in Verizon Hall was Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, and it couldn’t have suited him more beautifully. He delineated the nearly pompous grandeur of the first movement with gracious good humor and shimmering pyrotechnics. He caught the playfulness of the second movement with jaunty rhythms and bright colorations, then whipped up the closing Presto with a tempo so fast yet so controlled that he seemed to transcend simple demon possession to attain demonic impersonation. Throughout all three movements, Watts played as though he were having one heck of a grand old time, which is precisely what he gave his audience.

It’s always fascinating to see and hear a visiting orchestra now that the Kimmel Center helped return the formerly over-booked Academy of Music to ballet and opera. Friday night’s visit by the New York Philharmonic under the guest baton of Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos was revelatory.

For starters, the New Yorkers re-arranged the overhead acoustical panels in Verizon Hall, raising all three of them to their highest position rather than the varying levels employed by the Philadelphians. That, perhaps, may have been a partial explanation for the Philharmonic’s sounding every bit of 40 percent fuller in tone than our own band usually sounds. Not only did the Philharmonic’s brass choir project blazing blasts of stentorian power, but even the strings came across with an admirable blend of transparency and presence while the woodwind section sounded smooth yet clear.

LOCAL TENOR

One of the well-known marvels of attending performances at the Academy of Vocal Arts is the opportunity to see and hear some of tomorrow’s opera stars today before they become internationally famous. Although it’s always chancy to predict the future of anything, it seems easy to suggest that if Northeast Philadelphia’s Stephen Costello continues to progress as he has done during his two previous years at AVA, the pinnacles of the opera world will soon be his for the asking.

HILLER RECORDS THIRD CD: Charleen Stevens, Chestnut Hill resident and lifetime musician, has recorded her third CD, The Happy Birthday Variations, and More! Originally written as a gift to her father for his 80th birthday, the 14 variations on the happy birthday tune illustrate the styles of composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Scott Joplin. Additional light music completes the recording, available for Christmas at both Intermission and Hideaway Music in Chestnut Hill. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

“An Evening of Russian Romances” — arranged, coached and accompanied by pianist Ghenady Meirson — offered many delightful pleasures of music and interpretation, but none quite matched the two selections in which Stephen Costello was heard. Alone in Hermann’s arioso from Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and then in a duet from the same opera with soprano Ailyn Perez, the young tenor displayed an immaculate vocalism that was actually surpassed by his interpretive artistry.

First, there’s the voice. Costello’s singing is characterized by that ringing timbre that we think of when we recall the voices of the great Italian tenors, from Enrico Caruso to Luciano Pavarotti. It delivers a visceral impact so potent that it seems to penetrate your body with a thrust directly into your heart. And yet, it can soften to a whisper without so much as a hint of loss of tonal focus. His voice spans its range from top to bottom without change of color — a sterling trait of Pavarotti’s voice — and boasts a malleable vibrato that varies expressively, enabling Costello to convey a host of emotions.

Then there’s his musicality. Despite singing in a language unfamiliar to most American singers, Costello didn’t just delineate the immediate meaning of the words he sang. Even though he was singing out of context, out of costume and out of scenery, Costello nonetheless created through his fervent intensity a complete portrayal of the role of Hermann within the whole of the opera.

HANDEL’S ‘MESSIAH’

As I took my seat in Verizon Hall to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra’s annual performance of Handel’s Messiah with the Philadelphia Singers Chorale, I found myself reminiscing about all those renditions the late Michael Korn directed with the Singers and how they annually programmed a different yet complete version of this most beloved of sacred oratorios, starting with the version Handel premiered in Dublin and ending with the final setting he led at the Foundling Hospital near the end of his life. I wondered if the performance I was about to experience would measure up to those held so dearly in memory.

While nostalgia often turns the imperfect past into a perfect keepsake, I quickly realized Sunday afternoon that England’s Stephen Layton was about to oversee one of the finest renditions of Messiah I’ve ever heard. As it turned out, Layton caught the proper spirit of the music from the very first notes of the Overture and then sustained that fidelity to the composer’s intentions with an unblemished integrity that left me hoping that the Philadelphia Orchestra would not only engage him as its permanent Messiah conductor but also to lead performances of Handel’s instrumental works and even a concert version of one of his operas such as Julius Caesar.

I was especially impressed with soprano soloist Mary Wilson. She employed her crystal clear voice with refined expressivity, phrased with convicted elegance and embellished with spirited common sense. Countertenor Michael Chance lacked timbral warmth in “He shall feed His flock,” but otherwise sang beautifully. His tone was clear, his vibrato full yet focused, his dynamic range comprehensive, and he delivered the drama of the text efficaciously. Tenor Robert Breault sang adequately but baritone Christopher Schaldenbrand was weak; he was virtually swamped in what should have been his big number, “The trumpet shall sound.”