From top left, Chautauqua Opera Company Young Artists Lindsey Weissman, mezzo-soprano, Jared Peterson, bass, Gabriel Chona Rueda, tenor, and Sydney Dardis, soprano, rehearse Monday for the Afternoon of Song performance today in Fletcher Music Hall.
LAYLA VINSON
Staff Writer
Saucy, smorgasbord, folksy and epic — each adjective belongs to one of four studio artists describing their unique repertoire as part of Chautauqua Opera Company’s “An Afternoon of Song” at 3:15 p.m. today in Fletcher Music Hall. Brought to life in the light of pianist and singer collaboration, the program offers selections from classic to contemporary, bookended with six time-honored art songs: Johannes Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes.
“They’re fantastic. There’s just a little bit of Hungarian drive in them, and some of it sounds like Johann Strauss and some of it sounds like an art song,” Carol Rausch, Company music administrator, chorus master and pianist said. “They’re really varied … and they’re for piano four hands.”
Of the five Company pianists performing for the art song recital — Miriam Charney, Rick Hoffenberg, Nathaniel LaNasa, Allison Voth and Rausch — four will play the highly coveted duets in accordance with singers Lindsey Weissman, Jared Peterson, Gabriel Chona Rueda and Sydney Dardis; mezzo-soprano, bass, tenor and soprano, respectively.
“I’m finding a lot of freedom walking into the room with Carol and working on these Brahms songs and just absolutely collaborating together and not saying, ‘Oh, I had all these plans in my head and what I wanted to do,’ but actually just listening to what she’s playing, and reacting,” said Weissman, referencing her decision to tackle entirely new repertoire for the recital. “We’re finding more and more ideas together. It’s a really fulfilling rehearsal period.”
In both discovering and revisiting repertoire for singers, Hoffenberg emphasized the fulfillment he feels when he finds what works best for each artist. For his collaboration with Peterson, whom he deems as having a “wide enough range and solid upper range that he can sing songs that might have been written for a slightly different voice category,” navigating elements such as transposition are common components of the rehearsal process.
“Ultimately [we] decided to do them in Vaughn Williams’ original keys; [Peterson] does them well, and we’ve been figuring out the approach that works best for him,” Hoffenberg said in reference to Peterson’s choices from Williams’ song cycle, Songs of Travel.
For Peterson, the art of performance is highly visual, imaginative and requires complete immersion in the story he shares with an audience.
“I imagine everything in front of me that is happening, and I can pretty much picture the scene,” Peterson explained. “Even if I’m in an audition setting or a recital setting, I am in the scene, and I can see the scene in front of me and I’m interacting with things.”
Chona Rueda shares the same passion for associative imagery in his art, specifically relating to one of his chosen pieces, “The Red Vineyard” from the song cycle Dear Theo, composed by Ben Moore.
“[Van Gogh’s] brother, Theo, was his main benefactor and supporter … in the scene where he describes all of the colors and all of the hues he uses in his imagination to describe it to his brother, it’s really profound to me as an artist having to prove our work — that we are working, that we are producing,” Chona Rueda said.
Chonda Rueda emphasized the endeavor of translation spans not only artistic imagery but language as well, highlighting the classical Colombian art song “Algún día” written by Dora Castellanos. With the title translating to “someday” or “one day,” Chonda Rueda revealed the unctuous tendency of the Spanish language and how it can drastically impact the meaning of a song for each individual.
“The beauty of this is … I don’t think there’s a right way or a wrong way,” Rausch said, reflecting on the preparation at large. “We’ve given each other permission — ‘Could I take this liberty? Why not? I’m taking this liberty.’ It’s just so rewarding.”
