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Aug. 7--With their radiant singing and glamorous auras, Renee Fleming and Jennifer Larmore remind you of the unshakeable power operatic divas exert over voice buffs. Their weekend concerts at Ravinia and Orchestra Hall, respectively, showed how artfully these smart all-American sopranos can work a room.
Larmore, headlining a program with the Grant Park Orchestra on Friday that amounted to a public recording session, reached out to her audience primarily through the music itself.
Fleming, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Saturday at Ravinia, employed every stratagem in her arsenal -- gorgeous voice and looks, and a natural, good-humored rapport with the crowd -- to seduce a sea of already susceptible fans.
Both artists excelled in Samuel Barber works -- "Knoxville, Summer of 1915" in Fleming's case, "Andromache's Farewell" in Larmore's.
Fleming affectingly captured the wistful nostalgia of the Barber "Knoxville," which evokes a child's experience of a warm summer's night. The music's sweetly lyrical lines rested beautifully on her creamy voice, reducing even the resident cicadas to rapt silence. But why did Ravinia have to amplify her voice for the pavilion folks?
Fleming also traced the melting pathos of Adriana Lecouvreur's paean to her dying flowers, savored Lauretta's sentimental plea to her darling daddy ("Gianni Schicchi") and filled out the long phrases of Tosca's "Vissi d'arte" in sumptuous slo-mo. The orchestra under Miguel Harth-Bedoya supported the diva capably.
Fleming's four encores ranged from the silly ("I Could Have Danced All Night," done up as an audience singalong) to the sublime (Gershwin's "Summertime," Strauss' "Morgen").
Larmore's admirers, battling their way through the Lollapalooza hordes to catch a rare glimpse of the Barrington-based mezzo-soprano, cheered her on as she assumed two regal roles, including the title character in Berlioz's "Death of Cleopatra."
In Barber's highly charged dramatic scena, Larmore caught the grieving queen's fury, anguish and tenderness so vibrantly and incisively that one hung on every word of the text.
Berlioz's cantata could have stood more of that same imperious vocal splendor. Larmore floated some raptly lovely passages but the tone thinned at the top of her range. Kalmar's pulsing double basses graphically evoked the ebbing away of Cleopatra's life.
Aaron Jay Kernis' "Symphony in Waves" (1989), which rounded out Friday's program, is built around a central image of waves -- light flickering on an undulating minimalist seascape, a concert of gulls sent scurrying by a jolt of Jerry Lee Lewis, violent clangy sonorities broken by unearthly calm. It's a terrific piece, edgy, lively and hauntingly beautiful, even if it's the very devil to get right.
Fortunately Kalmar and his amazing orchestra got it very right in a taut, confident reading that earned applause from everyone including the composer. Bravo to Cedille Records for taping the weekend performances for a forthcoming all-Kernis CD. If Grant Park can prepare tough new works such as this so cleanly in only a few rehearsals, why can't the CSO?
jvonrhein@tribune.com
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Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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