New York Times
January 16, 2007

Music Review | Isabel Bayrakdarian

A Visa Problem in Canada, and an Excursion to Spain
By ALLAN KOZINN

Isabel Bayrakdarian, the soprano, and Russell Braun, the baritone, were to
have shared a recital on Sunday afternoon at the Morgan Library & Museum.
Both singers are Canadian, as are the pianists they work with, and at the
last minute, visa problems prevented Mr. Braun from traveling to New York.
So Ms. Bayrakdarian and her pianist, Serouj Kradjian (they are also
married), added two groups of songs and a solo piano work to the Schubert
and Pauline Viardot groups they had planned, and had the recital all to
themselves.

The amended program was a tour of national styles filtered through 19th- and
early-20th-century sensibilities, and Ms. Bayrakdarian was at her most vivid
when the music drew most overtly on folk music and dance roots. She gave a
florid account of `L’Invito,’ the bolero from Rossini’s `Soirées Musicales,’
for example, and her reading of the `Tarantella Napoletana’ from the same
set was brisk, fiery and suffused with an undercurrent of sensuality.

Ernesto Lecuona’s `Malagueña’ was enlivened with a similarly vital
performance. Here, and in its companion works in her Spanish set – `Del
cabello más sutil’ and `Chiquitita la novia’ by Fernando Obradors – Ms.
Bayrakdarian caught the essence of the music in her subtly shifting tempos
and flamenco-tinged vocalise passages.

Spain seemed to exert an unusual pull on Ms. Bayrakdarian and Mr. Kradjian.
Two of the Viardot songs, `Madrid’ and `Havanaise,’ emphasized the
composer’s Spanish roots and drew on flamenco figuration as fully as the
Obradors songs. On the other hand, in his pastel-hued performance of
Granados’s `Quejas o la maja y el ruiseñor,’ from `Goyescas,’ Mr. Kradjian
highlighted the stylistic connections between Granados and his French
contemporary Ravel.

Ms. Bayrakdarian put Viardot’s Gallic side in the spotlight as well, by way
of gracefully turned performances of `Sylvie,’ the gently macabre `Enfant et
la mère’ and the swirling `Aime-moi,’ a reworking of a Chopin mazurka.

The recital, part of the series that the George London Foundation has
presented at the Morgan since 1995, began with a group of Schubert songs in
which Ms. Bayrakdarian acclimated herself to the small, acoustically bright
new hall. At first she seemed to overestimate the power she needed, but by
the third song, she had taken the room’s measure, giving a beautifully
serene performance of `Nacht und Träume’ that showed her interpretive
flexibility and expressive sound to fine effect.

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