CONDUCTING DIMS SOPRANO’S STAR
Tamara Bernstein
Globe and Mail
October 20, 2008
Canada
Isabel Bayrakdarian with the Manitoba
Chamber Orchestra
Pianist Serouj Kradjian
Guest conductor Anne Manson
Roy Thomson Hall
In Toronto on Friday
As 8 p.m. drew near, I looked around in dismay at the many empty
seats in Roy Thomson Hall. How could this be happening? If there were
one sure bet on Toronto’s autumn concert lineup, this would be it:
the glorious soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian singing repertoire from
the Armenian tradition that is so close to her heart, joined by her
supremely talented pianist (and husband) Serouj Kradjian and the
strings of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.
I’d already heard much of the program (with a different orchestra) on
Bayrakdarian’s gorgeous new CD of songs by Armenian composer Gomidas
Vartabed (also known as Komitas Vardapet), who lived from 1869 to
1935. The one unknown on the lineup was U.S. conductor Anne Manson,
but what an impressive bio she has! The concert program cites a rave
review from the New York Times and lists prestigious gigs at the
Salzburg Festival and Glimmerglass Opera, among other achievements.
The disconnect between that glamorous bio and the time-beater who stood
on the podium Friday boggles the mind. I can’t remember encountering
such stiff, unnuanced conducting, and so little feel for a vocal line,
on a professional stage.
I kept wanting to close my eyes, not only to avoid the irritating
sparkles on Manson’s jacket (a sartorial gaffe that distracted from
both the music and the singer’s physical presence) but to avoid the
sight of her outsized gestures – Manson seemed to think she was
conducting a 100-piece orchestra plus massed choirs, not a small
string group that scarcely followed her anyway.
I’m dwelling on the conducting because Manson ruined the concert,
which was sponsored by the International Institute for Genocide and
Human Rights Studies and is part of a tour "dedicated to the victims
of all genocides." Along with music by Gomidas, the program included
works by Bartok, whose passionate investigations of traditional
Hungarian, Balkan and Arabic repertoires are kindred to Gomidas’s
work with Armenian traditional music, and by Jewish composer Gideon
Klein (1919 to 1945), a victim of the Nazi Holocaust. Gomidas himself
survived the Armenian genocide but was so shattered by its horrors
that he ended his days in a mental institution outside of Paris.
Bayrakdarian was in beautiful voice for the evening, but she did not
connect with the layers of emotion or history in Ravel’s Deux melodies
hebraïques, which includes the Kaddish sung by Jewish mourners. But it
must have been difficult when Manson was bulldozing through Ravel’s
miraculous setting, which ought to be a discreet shimmer of mystical
light.
The Gomidas folk song settings, which Kradjian has arranged for string
orchestra, made up the bulk of the program. They are wonderful pieces
in which vocal ornamentation caresses the beautiful Armenian melodic
modes, and through which ghosts of Schubert, Delibes and other European
composers flit. The sweet yet wild sound of the duduk, a traditional
Armenian reed instrument, performed by Hampic Djabourian, was a real
treat. But under Manson’s direction, Bartok’s Rumanian Folk Dances
and a set of Greek Dances by Nikos Skalkottas were an ordeal.
Kradjian’s performance of five dances for solo piano poured balm on the
wounds inflicted by Manson: Here at last were subtlety and suppleness,
innate musicality, spontaneity and the connection of soul to soul.
Under the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Bayrakdarian
did not offer as moving an interpretation of the music as she does
on the CD.
As for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, which is currently without a
music director, I note with concern that Manson is conducting three
of its nine concerts this season. If the orchestra is shopping for
a music director, the musicians, and their audiences, deserve better.
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