Ned Rorem (above). Marc Kurdisch (below).
Celebrations of composer Ned Rorem’s 80th birthday, which was on October 23, continued at Merkin Concert Hall on October 27, with Ray Evans Harrell and Stephanie Weems’ Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble’s gala, a full and varied evening, which included two short operas from the 1950s and a salute by playwright Edward Albee.
“Four Dialogues,” a grand opera parody in four scenes, with libretto by Frank O’Hara, was given by Broadway theater performers and concerns an affair that begins unceremoniously with a pick-up on the subway and ends abruptly when the woman wrinkles the man’s newspaper. Although not up to the tenor top notes that dot the man’s part, Marc Kurdisch did lend the lower lines a honeyed tone, dripping with lust, while Lisa Vroman sang the woman’s role in a sweet, flexible soprano. Stan Tucker and Larry Yurman played the piano parts and Nick Corley devised the basic staging.
“A Childhood Miracle” with text by Elliott Stein, after Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “The Snow Image,” paints a lyrical, innocent-seeming picture of 19th Century New England in the snow until darker strains emerge. Corley directed this concert adaptation, Tucker conducted, and Gerald Steichen was at the keyboard. Soprano Lorraine Hinds and mezzo-soprano Darcy Dunn harmonized agreeably as a pair of very young sisters who build a snowman (tenor Vale Rideout) and endow him with life. Silvery-voiced Hinds distinguished herself in a rhapsodic solo about the alluring snow figure. Dunn’s character recalled the funeral of an unloved aunt and a graveside promise to an unknown dead youth; the girls’ father (baritone Peter Castaldi) confronted the stranger (the snowman); and the opera ended with the girls, enveloped by snow, becoming snow figures themselves. Mezzo-soprano Edith Dowd and soprano Caroline Worra completed the cast and actor Curt Karibalis provided narration.
Between musical works, Albee spoke of his long friendship with Rorem, whom he called “the preeminent vocal writer of our era.” Rorem contemporary Schuyler Chapin touchingly celebrated a 43-year-old friendship and business relationship that began when Chapin was with Columbia Records, which first recorded the composer’s music. Poet J.D. McClatchy and writer Amanda Vaill also sent tributes, which were delivered by Karabilis while Gregory D’Agostino played pieces from Rorem’s “Piano Album.”
With Steichen at the piano, operatic mezzo-soprano Delores Ziegler sang a sextet of Rorem songs. Among these were her fervent “The Lordly Hudson,” with words by Paul Goodman, limning New York’s noble river, and dramatic “Sick Wife,” statement of the invalid, from the song cycle “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” to words by Jane Kenyon. Other excerpts from the cycle were accompanied by pianist Jonathan Hall, beginning with “Their Lonely Betters,” to W.H. Auden’s poem contrasting simple birds and flowers with complex, but not necessarily happier thinking beings. Beverly Vanessa Hill sang this in a lush soprano, but sacrificed words, so important here, for roundness of tone. Castaldi faced mortality resonantly, and with clear diction, in “He thinks upon his death,” to Julien Green’s words. Dunn and Rideout completed the vocal quartet in other selections, including “Evidence of Things not seen,” the work’s conclusion, to words of William Penn.
Rounding out the evening were a cappella choral works, sung by the Stan Tucker Vocal Ensemble, led by Tucker, beginning with “Parting,” Rorem’s dulcet setting of loving lesbian poetry by Sappho. In “Crabbed Youth and Age,” to anonymous Renaissance verse, the singers took a light-hearted look at a generation gap. They also introduced Tucker’s choral arrangement of “O you whom I often and silently come,” the ever so brief, but entirely complete and satisfying love song, to Walt Whitman’s words.
Magic Circle will continue its salute to Rorem next spring with recitals of his songs sung by Castaldi, Dunn and Hill and performances of his guitar works, played by Pat Jones, and organ works, with D’Agostino and the EOS orchestra. Castaldi will sing at Merkin Hall (April 25), D’Agostino will play at Riverside Church (May 4 and 18), and locations of the other events will be announced.
Merkin Concert Hall
129 West 67th Street
212/501-3330
Tickets $45