VOICES, NEW WORKS FILL THE AIR
        Premieres by Composers Getty and Rosado the Same Day 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of July 25-Aug. 2, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 120

            Premieres of vocal works 50 miles apart were the surprise offerings of a sunny California Sunday.
            Working hard to fill a void in the summer doldrums, the Festival del Sole provides a week of varied fare in the heart of the Napa Valley’s wine country at Yountville. The festival brings in the Russian National Orchestra and a star or two annually, capped this year by Joshua Bell.
            For the season finale July 23 the chamber orchestra presented two choral works by San Francisco composer and financier Gordon Getty, 75. Getty is best known for his opera based on Shakespeare’s Falstaff, “Plump Jack.” The better of these two recent pieces was his setting of John Keats’ ardent love poem in English, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” Getty, whose orchestration is normally Spartan,  picked up on the agitation and love-bewilderment of the narrator for lovely orchestral accents to underline the vocal line. The ardent romantic poetry has a tragic ending, much like concurrent texts set by Schubert--- only here because of the lady’s cruel streak, not because of a rival  love.
            Also in the  mix was a world premiere of an ode to beauty, “The Old Man in the Night,” using Getty’s own text in the style of John Masefield. Getty established his solid credentials as a poet here, more so than as composer.  There is a misty, mystical quality here that is difficult to sustain musically, given the sparse orchestration and the repetitive, unemotional output of a chorus making leaps of fourth and fifths up and down in a thoroughly tonal medium. Such homogeneity would be far more effective in a terse poem rather than in a work running 21 minutes.
            The 40-member chorus Volti rendered the Getty pieces, within the leeway permitted by the acoustics at the Lincoln Theater, where the orchestra and downstage performers come through strongly, but the upstage chorus does not. An acoustical shell would be advisable next time.
            The festival sought to produce the maximum within budget limitations, to the extent of borrowing cellos and double basses locally---thus saving greatly on bulky transportation costs from Moscow---and, in a more debatable move, using an electronic sampler to fill in certain live acoustical instruments that were not readily available.
            The “Neruda Songs” by Peter Lieberson, 64, made up a larger-scale opus 34 minutes in length. They were interpreted by mezzo Kelley O’Connor,  a young artist with a rich voice who is still reaching for a broader emotional compass (and sharper enunciation) in her attractive performances marked by memorization of the substantial  Spanish texts. With barely more than a string orchestra, Lieberson made telling emotional impact in  five passionate love songs, written for his late wife and former Bay Area artist, mezzo Lorraine Hunt.
            Blame a heavy festival performance schedule if you will, but the Russian National Orchestra did not show the same polish here as it did last season when playing under its founder. It came off as a rough-and-ready crew in the Dvorak Symphony No. 7, marked by uneven edges, little finesse in phrasing, and overbearing brass. The man of the hour on the podium was its Associate Conductor Carlo Ponti  (Jr.), who has led the Santa Barbara Symphony for the past decade in addition. His podium manner lies between eccentric and unorthodox, with his free hand often moving in directions opposite to the baton, and his body language often twisting at odds with the musical thrust. Ponti and the Russian National Orchestra have been a fixture at the festival for most of the four-year existence.
            However, the audience, a mix of locals and Bay Area  visitors, applauded all facets of the performances with enthusiasm. And much of that was merited, as few orchestras perform during Northern California’s summer, and even fewer perform a bold program of  two-thirds living composers. The rousing response and boosterism are clearly essential ingredients for the future growth of the fest.
            Yountville’s Lincoln Theater, which was rehabbed several seasons ago, is a comfortable facility with good sightlines, good accessibility, and ample parking.
             Festival del Sole, Lincoln Theater, Yountville, CA, Feb. 16-23. For info go  online.
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            The same day, a Berkeley church serving the University of California community unveiled a premiere piece for soloist and choir, “Psalm 138,” by New Yorker Anthony Rosado. Rosado, who had attended the Manhattan School of Music,  showed a unique gift for the lyrical flow of Italianate composition, growing out of sacred-music traditions of Rossini, Puccini and their circle. His work (in English) was animated and hauntingly beautiful, evoking a warm round of applause in mid-service by the congregation at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. If however you are looking for Rosado to produce an Italian-style opera, you may have a very long wait; Rosado is a seminarian, currently studying for the priesthood in Washington, D.C.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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