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Soprano Measha Brueggergosman at Spivey
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
RECITAL REVIEW
Soprano Measha Brueggergosman and pianist J.J. Penna. Sunday at Spivey Hall in Morrow. www.spiveyhall.org.
How should we feel about superstar-divas-in-training?
We all know the plot of the American success story, which applies equally to opera singers, haute-cuisine chefs and corporate executives: years of slogging hard work till a lucky break catapults you into the public eye, at which time you’re labeled an “overnight sensation.”
With Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman, who made her Atlanta debut Sunday at Spivey Hall, one had the feeling it was too much too soon.
Brueggergosman — pronounced “BREW-ger-GOS-man” — has a strong, ample voice. She can sing easily from an ear-splitting roar to delicate soft tones. Given the size of her instrument, and that she sings mostly head voice, she has it well under control. The sounds she can make are world-class lovely.
Yet much of her program showed an enthusiastic young artist, she’s 27, still grappling with the basics. Her tonal luster accounted for the afternoon’s pleasures.
Accompanied by pianist J.J. Penna, she sang a debutante’s program — art songs in many languages and styles — in French, German, Spanish and English, designed to show her versatility.
That strategy revealed some serious gaps. If she’s to sing the ultra-taxing Wagner heroines later in her career, for which she has the potential, she needs to tighten her craft now, while she’s young.
Her best singing, without question, came at the end. Composer William Bolcom coached the soprano in his witty and literate Cabaret Songs. At Spivey she sang them to perfection. With clear diction and theatrical timing, she had the audience laughing for “Toothbrush Time,” a comic number on loneliness and empty sex.
In “Waitin,” a gorgeous tune that seems at once a pop ballad, an old spiritual and a romantic vocalize, she delivered it all — long legato lines supported by infinite breath, a sense of tragic poetry in the words, and a beautifully tapered diminuendo, softer, softer, softer, down to the moment when she stopped producing sound but the room still resonated with her vocal warmth. For these Bolcom songs, thanks to careful preparation, we heard the young singer’s earth-conquering potential.
Elsewhere she had trouble communicating. She couldn’t find the consonants in Ravel’s “Cinq Melodies populaires grecques” and thus the quieter songs came out mushy.
She was more intelligible, as expected, in “Tout gai!,” the final, boisterous song in the Ravel set. Here she could open up her voice, let the river flow, and her diction improved.
Four songs by Joseph Marx were more satisfying — she seemed to be having more fun, too — mostly because she couldn’t avoid the hard consonants of German.
Montsalvatge’s “Cinco canciones negras” are mini-dramas about vivacious, rough living. She floated many lovely notes, and dazzled with the subtlety and diversity of her tone production, although had little to say as a storyteller — and thus half each song?s worth went unexplored.
She switched to her native English after intermission. Yet she had little feeling for language in Britten’s “On This Island” (of poems by W.H. Auden), or for Copland’s songs on Emily Dickenson poems, and her interpretations were bland, without much character.
She was wise to leave us with her nicely crafted Bolcom songs. She left us wanting much, much more.
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