Samantha Hankey’s Schwabacher Recital

Pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson accompanying mezzo Samantha Hankey (photograph by Matthew Washburn, courtesy of San Francisco Opera)

Last night in the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theatre of the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, the annual Schwabacher Recital series concluded with a recital by mezzo Samantha Hankey, accompanied at the piano by Carrie-Ann Matheson. The program was performed without an intermission, but there was more than enough in the content to engage the serious listener.

Where my own tastes were concerned, what interested me most about the program was the inclusion of music by Alexander Zemlinsky. This composer has fascinated me ever since I read Alma Mahler’s Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters. She had been a composition student of Zemlinsky, who (like many of the men of that time) fell in love with her. However, that relationship did not last. (She found him too ugly.) As well all know, Alma subsequently married Mahler.

Last night’s selection was composed after Zemlinsky had gotten over that relationship. The title (in English) is Six Songs to texts by Maurice Maeterlinck; and they set the texts in German between 1910 and 1913. (The texts were originally written in French, and the music was subsequently orchestrated in 1924.)

Hankey sang four of these songs:

• Die drei Schwestern (the three sisters)
• Die Mädchen mit den verbundenen Augen (the girl with bandaged eyes)
• Als ihr Geliebter schied (when her lover left)
• Und kehrt er einst heim (if he returns one day)

Her vocal delivery provided the perfect match to the darkness of the texts, while Matheson’s accompaniment enhanced the underlying rhetoric. To be fair, however, I know much of Zemlinsky’s music through cherished experiences of seeing several of his operas; and I can appreciate why he chose to orchestrate these settings. I have listened to them in that setting, and they are positively bone-chilling. Nevertheless, Hankey’s interpretations cut to the heart of each of her texts, leaving me on the edge of my seat as she advanced through her four selections.

The Zemlinsky offering was preceded by another set of selections. These were four of the seven canciones populares españolas (Spanish folksongs) composed by Manuel de Falla:

• El paño moruno (the Moorish cloth)
• Seguidilla murciana
• Asturiana
• Polo

I have encountered the full cycle in performance many times. (The most recent was almost exactly a year ago, when mezzo Sasha Cooke was accompanied by guitarist Jason Vieaux.) As was the case with all of the song texts, English translations were projected behind the performers; but Hankey’s body language was as expressive as the words she was delivering.

The program began with Claude Debussy’s settings of three of the poems from Pierre Louÿs’ collection of erotic poetry entitled (in English) The Songs of Bilitis:

• La flûte de Pan (Pan’s flute)
• La chevelure (the hair)
• Le tombeau des Naïades

Debussy worked with this music in a variety of instrumental settings. Matheson clearly appreciated the technique behind the composer’s keyboard music; but the focus was on Hankey’s interpretation which delivered the erotic qualities with just the right level of subtlety.

The program concluded with selections by Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, and Kurt Weill. Arlen was represented by what is probably his best-known tune, “Over the Rainbow,” composed for Judy Garland to sing in the movie The Wizard of Oz. This was followed by Cole Porter’s “So in Love,” composed for the musical Kiss Me, Kate. Finally, there were two Weill selections. “Youkali” was a tango sung in French; and it was followed by “Speak Low,” composed for the musical One Touch of Venus. Hankey then returned for a single encore, once again in English: Samuel Barber’s “Sure on this shining night,” setting a poem by James Agee.

If the evening was shorter than usual, it could not have been more satisfying. I was glad to see that, in her credentials, Hankey has been making a name for herself in opera performances. Nevertheless, I was really drawn to her skills as a recitalist last night. I would be only too happy to have another encounter with one of her art song journeys.