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| Keren Hadar (Chaya Zel) |
“In the Shadow of
Dictatorship”, a recent concert of the Israel Chamber Orchestra, took place in
the Recanati Auditorium of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on December 14th, 2019.
It was conducted by Yaron Gottfried; soloists were mezzo-soprano Merav Eldan
and soprano Keren Hadar.
The program opened
with “Variaciones concertantes”, by Argentinian
composer Alberto Ginastera. (1916-1983). Written
in 1953, the instrumental work stems from the composer’s so-called “subjective
nationalistic” period, his earlier music being overtly nationalistic in
character. Ginastera had been awarded a Guggenheim scholarship to study in the
United States in 1942, but this was delayed until the war ended in 1945, when
he then left for studies in New York and Tanglewood. The years
following his return to Argentina were marked by periodic run-ins with the
Peron regime until Peron's overthrow in 1955. Referring to the “Variaciones
concertantes”, Ginastera wrote: “These variations have a subjective Argentine
character. Instead of using folkloristic material, I try to achieve an
Argentine atmosphere through the employment of my own thematic and rhythmic
elements…” Following
its opening of “open string” sounds on the harp and a plangent ‘cello solo, the
work launches into eleven richly different variations, from bright, rhythmic,
bombastic tutti to calm, darker, intimate variations, the latter, at times
bordering on the “otherworldly”, with the full weight of the
orchestra apparent in the sweeping final “malambo” (Argentinian
folk-dance). A
master of this form, Ginastera’s piece offers a considerable challenge to the
players, as the work mixes homophonic-, dissonant- and jazzy elements. (There
was one moment where associations of the brandishing of swords from
Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” came to mind.) With Ginastera relating to all the instruments
of the orchestra in their soloistic capacity, the work’s many solos for flute,
viola, ‘cello, harp, oboe, violin, horn and bassoon etc. offered the audience
the opportunity of hearing rewarding individual playing on the part of
several of the ICO’s players.
Then
to the concert version of Manuel de Falla’s 1914-1915 ballet “El amor brujo”
(Love, the Magician). Distinctly nationalistic in style, it is one of the great
works of an era that was characterized by a keen interest in indigenous folk
music as the basis for concert compositions. Distilled from Gypsy “cante jondo”
(vocal folk style), Andalusian melodies and rhythms, flamenco and other aspects
of the Spanish “melos”, it is set in Andalusia and revolves around the
heroine of the ballet, Candelas, who has been in love with a dashing gypsy,
recently dead. He lives on in her memory and keeps returning to haunt her.
Maestro Gottfried gave precision, exuberance and Spanish flair to de Falla’s
soundscape - its terse, fiery dances, its moments of tender melancholy and
explicit sentimentality. The Ritual Fire Dance, an audience
favourite, emerged guileful, exciting and exhilarating. Singing Gregorio Martinez Sierra’s
tragic libretto, mezzo-soprano Merav Eldan, a singer as comfortable in
contemporary, avant-garde solo works as she is in opera, captured the spirit of
the work, its raw emotion, its vocal style, its specific timbre (engaging ample
chest voice) and gestures, as well as the vehement sentiments of Candela,
the young gypsy woman. With the vocal line plunging into alto territory,
Eldan’s lower register was obviously not as substantial as that of an alto
singer.
Among the most creative and outsized personalities
of the Weimar Republic, that sizzling yet decadent epoch between the Great War
and the Nazis' rise to power, were the renegade poet Bertolt Brecht and the
rebellious avant-garde composer Kurt Weill. Together, they created a new
style of topical opera that focused on contemporary political and social issues
and that had none of the elitism which marked the established theatre of the
time. It mirrored the decadence and
unfulfilled hopes of a temporary oasis in German history, reawakening a lost era
that engaged in issues of tolerance, sexual questions and political uncertainty.
Weill and Brecht’s works endorsed the fact that contemporary values were
suspect and that that the individual needed to find a way to exist without
values. Following intermission at the ICO concert, soprano Keren Hadar’s
appearance on stage transformed the venue to that of a Berlin cabaret of the
1920s and ‘30s, Hadar’s versatile stage ability and large, flexible palette of vocal colours came
together to give compelling expression to the tough lives and emotions of
downtrodden women as portrayed by Jenny and her fellow prostitutes in
“Alabama Song” (sung in the original English), in “Pirate Jenny”, in which
Polly sings a song of female vengeance about Jenny, a poor, lowly maid who was
mocked and mistreated by the townspeople and to Hadar’s vehement, heartfelt
presentation of the woman’s anger, hurt
and her remaining tender love for
heartless, lying “Surabaya Johnny”. Some of the songs were sung to Dan
Almagor’s insightful Hebrew translations. And to the "Ballad Of The
Soldier's Wife": Keren Hadar sits at a small table, examining a host of
pretty boxes as she sings of the various gifts sent to his lady by the soldier
from Prague, Oslo, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Bucharest and, finally, the
widow’s veil sent to her from Russia. A poignant touch was the inclusion
of Dan Almagor’s own addition to the song, describing shat the soldier sent from Auschwitz. Treated
with understated and spine-chilling delicacy, this was musical theatre at its
best. “September Song”, Kurt Weill’s song
to lyrics by Maxwell Anderson from the 1938 Broadway musical production of
“Knickerbocker Holiday”, provided a lyrical and touching moment of relief to
the intensity of the previous songs. The bracket concluded with a polished performance
of "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" (Hebrew: Avraham Shlonsky)
from “The Threepenny Opera”, Hadar’s singing of it offering a nonchalantly
breezy, wink-of-an-eye account of a brutal murderer. The ultimate artist to
perform these formidable songs, Keren Hadar had the audience at the edge of its
seats, as she gave the songs her theatrical and musical all, punctuating them with
occasional quips on local underworld matters and politics. Maestro
Gottfried’s vibrant and finely-detailed performance of Benny Nagari’s skilful
orchestrations was enriched by instrumental solo moments, especially notable being those on
the part of the saxophonist. Jenny was to feature just once again, this time in Keren
Hadar’s encore - "The Saga of Jenny" - a droll number written for a
1941 Broadway musical by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, the song referred to by
the latter as "a sort of blues bordello".
An evening of outstanding performance, interest and
enjoyment.
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