a review of Daniel Okulitch

Publication: Journal of Singing Author: Berg, Gregory Date published: September 1, 2012 Daniel Okulitch: The New American Art Song. Daniel Okulitch, baritone; Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Lowell Liebermann, Glen Roven, piano. (GPR Records GPRB004SKJZ0Y; 70:48) Ricky Ian Gordon: Quiet Lives: "Bus Stop," "Three Floors," "The Crazy Woman," "Virginia Woolf," "Interior," "As Planned," "Kid in the Park," "Lullaby." Jake Heggie: Of Gods and Cats: "In the Beginning," "Once Upon a Universe." Glen Hoven: Songs from the Underground "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven," "Ozymandias," "The Expulsion from Eden," "Like a Beacon," "Composed upon Westminister Bridge," "Teeth," "This is Just to Say," "What am I After All," "Song," "London Airport," "The Leader," "Knightsbridge Ballade," "Come to the Edge," "London Airport, reprise," "In My Craft or Sullen Art." Lowell Liebermann: Night Songs. "Good Night," "She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep," "A Variation on 'To Say To Go To Sleep'." This release may be the most exciting and impressive art song recording of the last decade, thanks to the superlative calibre of songs it contains and the marvelous singer who brings them thrillingly to life. Baritone Daniel Okulitch is among the most highly regarded artists of his generation, with an impressive resumé that includes the role of Schaunard in Baz Luhrmann's groundbreaking Broadway production of La bohème from a decade ago. Although the charismatic Okulitch has won great acclaim in such mainstream roles as Don Giovanni and Figaro, his greatest headlines thus far came as the star of Howard Shore's science fiction opera The Fly, in which he appeared completely naked in one critical scene. The baring of his powerful physique may have attracted some extra attention to the L.A. Opera's production, but what garnered the most meaningful praise for Okulitch was his heart-rending portrayal of the tragic scientist Seth Brundle, while contending with a difficult and largely ungrateful musical score. It was the kind of accomplishment that an ordinary artist could not have hoped to achieve, and one can only hope-and, if there is any justice in this world, expect-that many more such opportunities will be his. Most singers resist comparisons with colleagues and counterparts, no matter how illustrious, but one hopes that Okulitch would not mind being compared to the superb American baritone Walter Cassel. His long and distinguished career included impressive stints at both the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera, roles in several Hollywood musicals, and a plethora of performances in live music theater. That thorough blending of genres surely helped Cassel hone a singing style that combined operatic grandeur with down-to-earth humanity, a style that served him especially well in creating the role of Horace Tabor in The Ballad of Baby Doe. His artistic assets included a glorious voice, authentic expressiveness, and diction that was beyond reproach. Okulitch's work here, while uniquely his own, is sometimes eerily reminiscent of his highly regarded predecessor, and one anticipates that Okulitch will ultimately enjoy success of similar dimensions. He is certainly already on his way. Thus far this discussion has been limited to the singer headlining this project, but it is the dazzling quartet of composers at hand that most dramatically distinguishes this recital from the run of the mill. Ricky Ian Gordon and Jake Heggie scarcely require a word of introduction for anyone conversant in modern opera and art song; they are the cream of the crop. Lowell Liebermann is a more familiar name in instrumental circles, with a host of highly acclaimed works to his credit, but the success of his opera The Picture of Dorian Gray leads one to hope that many more vocal works are in his future. The fourth composer, Glen Roven, may be the least familiar to JOS readers, but his resumé includes two presidential inaugural gala concerts, the one-woman shows of Liza Minnellli and Patti LuPone, the final televised appearances of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr., and conducting everyone from Placido Domingo to Hootie and the Blowfish. He has also fashioned his own English translations of several Mozart operas and Schubert's Winterreise, and his many original compositions include highly regarded works inspired by classic children's books like Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon. Roven also happens to be the artistic director for GPR Records, so he as much as anyone is responsible for assembling these four composers who also serve as pianists for their respective works. Roven's Songs of the Underground is a cycle consisting of fifteen highly diverse songs that demonstrate the composer's inexhaustibly rich imagination and flair for the dramatic. The poems include works by Yeats, Shelley, Milton, Whitman, Auden, Wordsworth, and Dylan Thomas, among others, and Roven treats these texts with discernment and sensitivity. Among the most impressive of these songs is "Ozymandias," a setting of Shelley's poem in which a traveler describes the ruined wreckage of a once mighty statue now half sunk in desert sands. This is one of the songs where Okulitch can unleash the massive majesty of his voice up to high F as he intones the words just barely visible on the statue's pedestal: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Then the composer strips away the grandeur of the music to a bleak emptiness as we hear these poignant words: "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away." Roven's vividly illustrative music both puts us at the scene and prompts feelings of contempt as well as sympathy for the arrogance of this now forgotten ruler. Not all of these songs are quite so monumental. "Teeth" is a playful salute to English teeth which ends with diese words: "Let's sing a song of praise to them-Three Cheers for the Brown, Grey and Black!" Roven garbs the poem in music that is off-kilter both harmonically and rhythmically without being so odd as to get in the way. Another fun-loving song is "The Leader," in which someone desperately begs to be the leader (of what exactly we can only guess), only to say upon finally getting what he wants, "Yippee, I'm the leader! Okay, what shall we do?" This song is especially hilarious as its performed here because Okulitch has such a powerful and virile voice, and yet manages the quicksilver quality of this childlike song so effortlessly. Other notable songs include "The Expulsion of Eden," a setting of Milton's intriguing poem that seeks to describe exactly how and with what emotions Adam and Eve exited the Garden of Eden. The driving, slashing musical figures Roven has crafted bring the scene and the couple's pained emotions vividly to life for us. These are just a few of the songs that comprise this fascinating cycle, which one can only hope will be taken up by baritones anywhere and everywhere who are equal to its considerable challenges. The other three works are not nearly so long, yet offer up great pleasures and treasures of their own. Ricky Ian Gordon's Quiet Lives is a superbly crafted set of seven songs that take us inside the lives of some unconventional and misunderstood people. One especially poignant poem, "Interior," describes the house of an older woman who lives alone and wishes to shut out the pain of the outside world. "Her mind lives tidily," so says the poet, "apart from the cold and noise and pain-and bolts the door against her heart out wailing in the rain." In James Schuyler's poem "Virginia Woolf" the narrator wishes that they could have somehow been around on that fateful day in 1941 when writer Virginia Woolf killed herself by drowning. Gordon's music perfectly captures the emotional ambiguity and confusion of the narrator and everyone else trying to make sense of such a tragedy, even after all these years. There is much beautiful music in this set, but nothing lovelier than the flowing lullaby that brings the cycle to an exquisite finish. Jake Heggie's Of Cats and Dogs, by contrast, contains only two songs, but yields more smiles and laughter than the rest of this generous disk combined. "In the Beginning" tells the story of creation from the peculiar perspective of a cat, and at least one passage in the accompaniment perfectly imitates the sound of a cat strolling on the keys of a piano, which is a delicious touch. So is the way the song so adroitly shifts from slinky and sensuous passages to stentorian pronouncements from the Almighty. "Once upon a Universe," on the other hand, paints the amusing yet not quite comprehensible scenario of God being a little kid and being chided by his mother: "Don't play with your creation!" It's a marvelously imaginative text and Heggie runs with it like only he can. Finally, the disk includes Lowell Liebermann's Night Songs, which features music that is a bit more conventional yet incredibly lovely. This is also the only set of the four which holds together with perfect cohesiveness, and in this company that is high praise indeed. It's fair to say that this generous collection does not happen to present as wide a swath of music styles as one might want from a disk audaciously titled "The New American Art Song." One looks in vain for anything that even hints at the avant garde or other styles less accessible than what is to be found here. No, this is meant to be a mainstream celebration of the modern art song as performed by one of our best baritones, accompanied by each of the four illustrious composers represented here. It's a marvelous concept, executed brilliantly. Read more: http://www.readperiodicals.com/201209/2744534491.html#ixzz3HAsKjOSq