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Harold Wilson Courtesy HaroldWilson.net |
I wish I could report that was the only thing that bothered me about Saturday's performance, but in truth I found a few things troubling. One was the inclusion of the chorus from LIU's CW Post campus, which chorus Mr. Shapiro also leads. I attribute to the presence of so many young voices the sometimes wan, anemic sound of the chorus men. There were also some issues with the orchestra. A single glack on a trumpet entrance might be excused, but there were repeated issues in bassoons and other winds, and occasional intonation issues from more than one section. Most troubling, however, was Mr. Shapiro's conducting. This was not the relatively tight performance I recall under Mr. Shapiro's baton in New Jersey on March 10. There were issues aplenty with cohesion and togetherness. From the audience it was hard to tell his intention in many places, and it was clear chorus, orchestra and soloists had the same difficulty.
It pains me to write in harsh terms about anyone, but the very fine solo quartet deserved better. This was the Carnegie Hall debut for soprano Jennifer Rowley and tenor Noah Baetge, likely for mezzo Leann Sandel-Pantaleo and bass Harold Wilson as well. They are all fine singers, and sang their roles well, but the fact that all four had issues in keeping with Mr. Shapiro would seem to indict Mr. Shapiro rather than any of them.
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Courtesy JenniferRowley.com Photo credit: Markku Pilhaja |
Because the soprano role is pivotal to the Verdi Requiem, I fear Mr. Shapiro did the greatest injustice to Miss Rowley. Whereas in the New Jersey performance Mr. Shapiro seems to have encouraged an occasionally raucous but overall quite balanced performance, at Carnegie Hall he seems to have pushed Miss Rowley much farther in the raucous direction but failed to follow through with support from the baton. There were passages Mr. Shapiro in fact did not conduct, a notable example being "Fac eas de morte transire ad vitam" at the end of the Offertorio, which the poor soprano sings a capella. The effect was not what one assumes he intended, but rather of the soloist being abandoned. I certainly don't mean to suggest she didn't cope well with the challenge, but that the challenge should not have been there.
Perhaps being intimately familiar with the work and hearing it live so many times in quick succession—quite an unusual opportunity—worked against me in my attempts to evaluate this performance objectively. The audience was full of happy people who were quite enthusiastic in their applause. Even putting aside the obvious crowd of LIU friends and family, this was an appreciative audience. Perhaps that is a better indicator of the success of the concert than the observations of an opera blogger. I can not say. I did enjoy the concert, but I grieve that the Carnegie Hall debuts of the four soloists will not necessarily be uniformly joyous memories for them.
5 comments:
I'd trust your instincts and expertise over the evening's vox populi. Sorry to hear of these coordination issues, but glad to hear good things of the singers. I've heard Harold Wilson as a sit-up-and-take-notice gaoler in Tosca, but have yet to discover the others.
You'll recall Jennifer Rowley was the cover who took over the lead in Maria di Rohan on very brief notice at Caramoor in 2010.
I was in the choir and I can assure you that we must not have seen the same performance. I had no trouble following him and neither did any of the soloists. There was one instance with the bassoon's intonation (during the blues-like solo), but otherwise the coordination was not an issue. I really don't see what you were talking about.
First of all, it's DOCTOR SHAPIRO.
Second of all, I can't see how ANYONE would take your article seriously considering how atrocious your grammatical/syntax errors were.
I can't believe I didn't see this sooner. It was most likely because our performance wasn't nearly as horrible as you make it out to be. I know that Dr. Shapiro gives everything 200% and the fact that he gave Ms. Rowley a CHALLENGE just shows what an AMAZING teacher he is. If he didn't push his "students" to the best of their ability, how would they know how great they can become?
Also, I like how you disabled the comments section on the Huffington Post page. The only reason why people do that is because they know that they are completely wrong and are scared of the wave of hatred they would get. And how nice of you to reply to "angry-young-man".
Note that the orchestra and the choir did not rehearse together until the day of the performance. I have never heard your name before so I'm assuming this is the bitter article of someone who didn't make it to stardom.
So, how DARE you. And adieu.
You seem to have strong feelings about this.
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