United States Various – ‘Amor: A Celebration of Steven Blier’s First 50 Years Onstage’: Lucia Bradford (mezzo-soprano), Michael Spyres (baritenor), Federico de Michelis (bass-baritone), William Socolof (bass-baritone), Steven Blier, Shawn Tang, John Musto (piano). New York Festival of Song, Merkin Concert Hall, New York, 15.2.2023. (RP)
Astor Piazzolla – ‘Fuga y misterio’ (Maria de Buenos Aires, arr. Pablo Ziegler); ‘Siempre se vuelve a Buenos Aires’
Carlos Guastavino – ‘Noches de Santa Fe, cancion del literol’; ‘Abismo de sed’
Ariel Ramírez – ‘Allá lejos y hace tiempo’
Gladys Bentley – ‘Ground Hog Blues’
Billy Strayhorn – ‘Day Dream’
Bessie Smith – ‘It Makes My Love Come Down’
Duke Ellington – ‘Come Sunday’ (Black, Brown and Beige); ‘I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So’
Gioachino Rossini – ‘Addio ai Viennesi’
Hector Berlioz – ‘Le spectre de la rose’ (Les nuits d’été)
Nicholas Brodzsky – ‘Be My Love’
George Gershwin – ‘Fascinatin’ Rhythm’ (Girl Crazy, arr. Steven Blier & John Musto)
Kurt Weill – ‘Bilbao-Song’ (Happy End)
Stephen Sondheim – ‘Talent” (Road Show)
André Previn – ‘The Dance of Life’ (The Good Companions)
Rob Schwimmer – ‘Holding You in My Arms’
In Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, silent-star legend Nora Desmond sings, ‘We taught the world new ways to dream’. It was operating by way of my thoughts as I left ‘Amor: A Celebration of Steven Blier’s First 50 Years Onstage’, despite the fact that it wasn’t on this system. Switch that final phrase to sing, and we’re speaking about Blier reworking the artwork of music over the previous few a long time.
When Blier broke onto the scene within the early Nineteen Seventies, music recitals had been fairly staid affairs. The customary program was typically chosen from a set menu of Baroque, German Lieder, French mélodies and one thing British or American for the adventurous. Blier helped blow the lid off that field, an ethos neatly encapsulated within the motto of the New York Festival of Song, which he cofounded in 1988: ‘No song is safe from us!’
Blier has worn many hats in his profession however is finest recognized for accompanying singers. He was the go-to collaborator for most of the greatest names within the enterprise, together with Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Jessye Norman, Samuel Ramey, José van Dam and Frederica van Stade. A degenerative muscular illness, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSH), has curtailed that facet of his profession, however he’s nonetheless educating at The Juilliard School and is on the helm of NYFOS.
It will not be a very fairly sight to look at Blier being wheeled out onto the stage and hoisted upon after which strapped to a chair earlier than a piano, but it surely does encourage awe and affection – particularly for many who can recall him as a younger man. He nonetheless performs however needed to rework his method as a result of his illness. Virtuosity will not be the measure of Blier’s artistry however slightly his pure enjoyment of making music that’s the yardstick.
For the celebration, Blier selected songs that exposed elements of his musical story and creative soul. The program included music from Latin America, which is certainly one of his passions, songs by Duke Ellington and Billie Strayhorn, some Kurt Weill and bel canto. He additionally expressed his love of New York City in phrases and music, tinged with a sentimentality for the times when it was tawdry, soiled and hapless.
Nostalgia weighed heaviest in music from Argentina, a spot the place Blier has by no means been. Buenos Aires, he mentioned, is an habit for him. First got here Pablo Ziegler’s association for 2 pianos of Astor Piazzolla’s ‘Fuga y misterio’ which he performed with Shawn Chang. The voice of Federico de Michelis fueled Blier’s flights of overt sentimentality. The Argentinian bass-baritone was romantic and dashing in Carlos Guastavino’s ‘Abismo de sed’, however poignantly sang of his native nation within the smoothest and loveliest of tones when accompanying himself on the guitar in Ariel Ramirez’s ‘Allá lejos y hace tiempo’.
‘Bilbao-Song’ was the one Kurt Weill work on this system. Blier mentioned that he had performed it over a thousand instances when accompanying the late Martha Schlamme, an internationally famend Weill interpreter. Schlamme at all times preceded it with a spoken introduction that William Socolof re-created for this live performance. Socolof introduced wistfulness and nostalgia, with simply the requisite dollop of mania, to the Weill, and he infused ‘Talent’ from Road Show with irony and an ‘up-yours’ perspective that its creator, Stephen Sondheim, alone may conjure.
Lucia Bradford was ‘Amor’, the live performance’s theme, dressed to kill in crimson and silver, and as shiny and vibrant as Valentine’s Day. Her growling-chest voice introduced earthiness to Gladys Bentley’s ‘Ground Hog Blues’ and Bessie Smith’s ‘It Makes My Love Come Down’. She was sultry and smooth when singing Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Day Dream”, which Blier opined contained the most beautiful chord progression in all of American music. The smile on her face matched the one in her voice in Duke Ellington’s ‘I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So’.
Blier mentioned that he hadn’t had an ‘opera crush’ for fairly some time till he heard Michael Spyres’s voice. They had by no means carried out collectively and solely had a little bit of rehearsal time the day earlier than the live performance, however we’re speaking professionals. Spyres offered vocal fireworks in Rossini’s ‘Addio ai Viennesi’, and luxurious, emotive singing in ‘Le spectre de la rose’ from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été.
With his three-octave vary, Spyres payments himself as a baritenor. After he went into full-tenor mode in a hovering rendition of ‘Be My Love’, Blier chided Spyres: ‘Scratch you and you’re a tenor’. More than a couple of within the viewers developed a crush on that voice, judging by what number of left the corridor buzzing the infectious Mario Lanza hit.
The live performance started and ended with the identical tug to the guts strings. In his opening remarks, Blier recalled how he had performed items by Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Gabriel Fauré for his audition to do graduate work on the Yale School of Music. The rejection letter got here with phrases to the impact that Blier would by no means have a profession as a pianist, and that the one individuals who would ever hear him play can be his children.
Blier mentioned that that FSH prevented him from doing the 2 issues he wished to do greater than something: stand up and wash the dishes and hug individuals. The former wasn’t within the playing cards, however he completed the latter by taking part in Rob Schwimmer’s ‘Holding You in My Arms’. For just some moments we had been all Blier’s ‘kids’, caught up within the pleasure and heat of his musical embrace. The dishes may wait.
Rick Perdian