Imaginative Ideas Make for Engaging Recital

Mezzo Ashley Dixon (courtesy of the San Francisco Opera)

Last night in the Taube Atrium Theater of the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, the San Francisco Opera and the Merola Opera Program jointly presented the second concert in the Schwabacher Recital Series. The recitalist was mezzo Ashley Dixon, accompanied at the piano by Kseniia Polstiankina Barrad. Dixon made the bold move of disregarding any songs with texts in German or English. Instead, her focus was on France and the Iberian peninsula, exploring a diversity of unfamiliar (if not unknown) territories.

The program began with Dixon giving an a cappella performance of “Las nubes fecundantes” (the fertile clouds), a traditional Sephardic folk song. This was followed seamlessly by “Triste está la infanta” (the infanta is gloomy), the first song in Alberto Hemsi’s Opus 18, the fourth in a set of ten volumes entitled Coplas Sefardies (Sephardic songs), published in Thessaloniki (in Greece) in 1932. Both of these offerings could be taken as a musical equivalent of haiku, capturing an intense impression in a duration little more than that of a single breath. Dixon’s low-key delivery succeeded in engaging audience attention; and, having established that attention, she could move on to more conventional recital offerings.

The remaining selections in the first set were songs by Maurice Ravel (“Chanson espagnole”), Franz Liszt setting a text in French (“Comment, disaient-ils”), and Reynaldo Hahn (“L’heure exquise”). While the texts were longer in duration, each of those songs captured a single impression, consistent with quietude of the first two songs in the set. Two sets remained prior to the intermission based on Spanish and French sources, respectively.

On the Spanish side my guess is that the most familiar of the offerings was the final one, “Polo” from the Siete canciones populares españolas (seven Spanish folk songs) set by Manuel de Falla. This was “virtually” coupled with “Llámale con el pañuelo” (wave to him with your handkerchief), taken from the Six Castilian Songs composed by Jesús Guridi in 1939. The other composers included in the set were Carlos Gustavino and Alberto Ginastera.

The French set was probably the most familiar portion of the entire recital. It included songs by Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Francis Poulenc (in that chronological order). However, it began with the less familiar “Ronde d’amour” (round of love), a poem by Charles Fuster set by Cécile Chaminade.

The second half presented two more extended offerings. The first of these was Joaquín Turina’s Poema en forma de canciones (poem in the form of songs), setting a text by Ramón de Campoamor y Campoosorio. This began with a “Dedicatoria” (dedication) for solo piano, which complemented the a cappella selection that opened the entire program. The was followed by Hector Berlioz’ “La mort d’Ophélie” (the death of Ophelia). The text was Ernest Legouvé’s translation into French of the extended monologue in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Both of these offerings were well-paced, delivered with just the right balance of expressiveness and technique by Dixon.

The encore selection was an engaging delivery of “La Vie en rose” (life in pink), words by Édith Piaf set to music by Louiguy.

The only disappointment was the lack of any background material in the program book. The richness of content that Dixon offered deserved the sort of extended set of notes that one comes to expect from San Francisco Performances. Mind you, I appreciate that Dixon focused on singing, rather than talking. Nevertheless, contextual knowledge for each of these selections, even if brief, would have been a valuable supplement to the texts and their translations into English.