×
Subscribe

Subscribe Today

Save almost 50% off the newsstand price!

In addition to receiving 26 issues of The Independent Kansas City’s Journal of Society, your subscription will include our annual publication, the Charitable Events Calendar and a subscription to our e-newsletter, The Insider.

Questions about your current subscription? Contact Laura Gabriel at 816-471-2800.

IN REVIEW: The prime of Ms. DiDonato – Hometown mezzo shows rich range of abilities

It’s hard to imagine Joyce DiDonato’s vocal artistry getting any better: The world-renowned mezzo-soprano from Prairie Village stands at her absolute prime. Her Harriman-Jewell Recital on February 13th—which happened to be her 42nd birthday—demonstrated the full range of her capabilities, offering a generous array of arias, scenes and French and Italian songs. Her mezzo is gorgeously outfitted: plumy and dense, relaxingly natural, dramatically informed and with a thrilling power in all its ranges.

Each half of her intelligently organized recital, a sort of Valentine’s Day gift to the community, began with a scena. The  opening was Haydn’s “Scena di Berenice,” which she sang with full operatic drama and fire, exploiting every nuance, every stormy outburst, to quite spectacular effect. The second opened with the “Willow Song” (“Assisa appiè d’salice”) from Rossini’s Otello, in which she was able to show her peerless connection with this composer’s particular style, lending Desdemona’s demure lament a tender sadness and embellishing the bel canto lines with shrewd taste.

Along the way were four rather slight Rossini songs, sung with subtlety if perhaps a tad too many saucy gestures, five jaunty songs evocative of Venetian gondolas and whatnot (Reynaldo Hahn’s Veneziana) and three Italian songs including the lovely, pensive “Serenata Francese” of Leoncavallo. Most rewarding, for me, were three terrific songs by Cécile Chaminade, one of the few female composers to have made a mark on the first half of the 20th century. Joyce’s impeccable French diction came to the fore in these substantial pieces, which ranged from the tranquil (“Aubade”) to the fiercely joyous (“L’été”). Throughout the recital Joyce showed she understands the difference between opera and song, approaching the former with full-scaled dramatic gesture, the latter with a more scaled-down but still emotionally rich delivery.

David Zobel was the supportive, always demure pianist. The encores were Cherubini’s aria “Voi che sapete” from The Marriage of Figaro, sung like an ardent boy; the splendidly splashy “Tanti affetti” from Rossini’s La donna del Lago; and “Over the Rainbow,” the latter a tribute to the land of Joyce’s youth.

To reach Paul Horsley, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.

Paul Horsley, Performing Arts Editor 

Paul studied piano and musicology at WSU and Cornell University. He also earned a degree in journalism, because writing about the arts in order to inspire others to partake in them was always his first love. After earning a PhD from Cornell, he became Program Annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he learned firsthand the challenges that non profits face. He moved to KC to join the then-thriving Arts Desk at The Kansas City Star, but in 2008 he happily accepted a post at The Independent. Paul contributes to national publications, including Dance Magazine, Symphony, Musical America, and The New York Times, and has conducted scholarly research in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic (the latter on a Fulbright Fellowship). He also taught musicology at Cornell, LSU and Park University.

Ad

Features

IN REVIEW: MARRY ME: New concerto inspired by wedding but not bound to it

By Paul Horsley David Ludwig knows better than to attach a “back-story” to a piece irrevocably, although he has openly stated that his new Violin Concerto was inspired by his…

IN REVIEW: KC Ballet’s new ‘Nutcracker’ is boisterous, busy, dazzling fun

By Paul Horsley Each production of The Nutcracker is to some extent a balancing act between spectacle and dance. At best it seamlessly integrates the colors and stagecraft that keep…

IN REVIEW: Lyric’s ‘Rusalka’ explores beauties of ‘Little Mermaid’ tale

By Paul Horsley The Lyric Opera of Kansas City deserves applause for taking on an opera in Czech for the first time in its history, but the opening performance of…

IN REVIEW: KC Ballet’s spring production shows off its contemporary chops

By Paul Horsley Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments is a work of such startling visual clarity, musicality and modernity that it’s astonishing to contemplate that it predates not just most of…