Barron took the pinched, nasally voice of a child throughout, acting (and overacting) the texts as she sang, sometimes a bit too cloyingly, about bad kitties who unspool yarn and about a crazy long list of loved ones in her bedtime prayers. Seven songs by Russian primativist Modest Musorgsky, The Nursery, were perhaps the afternoon’s only weak point. She caught the autumnal wistfulness and pathos in the opening line of “O wüsst ich doch Weg zurück, Den lieben Weg zum Kinderland!” (“Oh, if I but knew the way back, the sweet way back to childhood!”), her phrasing and almost theatrical timing adding a golden glow to Klaus Groth’s poem. Her amazing lower range is creamy warm, verging on adorably husky for the very bottom notes.īetween the Chinese-language songs was Brahms’ Heimweh lieder ( Longing for Home ), perfectly crafted and beautifully delivered. It offered perhaps the widest range of any song on the program, showing that the mezzo’s top notes are lustrous, piercing and full (without thinning into a soprano-ish tone). Singing in Mandarin, Barron here had to employ techniques from Chinese opera, with swoops and scoops and vocal acrobatics. Her “Know You How Many Petals Falling?” was commissioned in honor of the New York firefighters who died in the 9/11 attacks. Like the New York-based Huang, Chen’s music creates evocative and very personal-sounding images using styles and techniques from several cultures. presence for several decades, and she’s now teaching at the conservatory in Kansas City. Huang Ruo’s “Fisherman’s Sonnet,” understated and soulful, evoked the fisherman’s song from Stravinsky’s opera The Nightingale (in a sort of artistic East/West feedback loop) and connected with myriad folk and modernist styles, all in the composer’s powerful voice.Ĭomposer Chen Yi has had a strong U.S. They opened with an effective set of Chinese-born modernist composers and Chinese folk songs, interspersed by Brahms. Barron and Drake made it a riveting experience, as much storytelling as glimpses into complex emotional states. Chinese opera, Johannes Brahms, Cole Porter, Alban Berg and a newly commissioned piece all connected seamlessly. Educated in New York, now based in London, she’s probably a couple of breakthrough opera performances away from that career tipping point, leading to legit international stardom and all its trappings: the glitzy opera productions created around her the recording contract the gala evenings the magazine covers.Īt Spivey she was partnered by the consummate accompanist Julius Drake, playing the gentle-voiced instrument nicknamed “Clara.” Barron’s peripatetic upbringing informed their program, called “HOME(Land).” It came with its own subtitle: “What does ‘home’ mean to you? It’s a physical place, a state-of-being, a cultural identity, a feeling? HOME(Land) explores perspectives on childhood, nostalgia and belonging.”Ī program on the multiple meanings of “home” allowed them to connect songs and poetry that were so disparate you’d not expect to hear them side by side. With a mother from Singapore and a British father - the BBC war correspondent Brian Barron - she led a globe-trotting, multi-lingual youth. She delivered Romantic art songs, angst-ridden modernist music and Broadway show tunes with equal verve. The fragrant beauty of her voice, the range of her skillset and the intuitive intelligence of her interpretations tell us she’s becoming an artist of the highest caliber. Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, still building a career, made her Spivey Hall debut Sunday afternoon. A major new singer has arrived on the scene.
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