Cincinnati May Festival Opens with Taste of Broadway

Patty LuPone

How appropriate that Broadway diva Patti LuPone should catalogue Kurt Weill’s “Seven Deadly Sins” on Friday night’s opening concert of the 2009 Cincinnati May Festival led by music director James Conlon.
   Not only did Weill become a Broadway composer after emigrating from Germany in the 1930s, but LuPone sings on the 2008 Grammy-winning release of Weill’s “Fall of the City of Mahagonny” with the Los Angeles Opera led by Conlon.

James Conlon

It was another bit of star power for the festival, which is enjoying a surge this year with the 30th anniversary of Conlon, who has risen to become one of the world’s most admired and accomplished conductors since taking on the May Festival at the age of 29.  A nearly full house greeted him with a standing ovation as he walked to the podium.  It was a heartfelt gesture that was repeated throughout the concert, which also included Mozart’s Requiem with the May Festival Chorus and Youth Chorus a quartet of eloquent soloists.
 

Music Hall Cincinnati

Music Hall, the opulent, neo-Gothic landmark built for the May Festival in 1877, welcomed its guests with flowers, banners, herald trumpeters, complimentary chocolates and a scattering of folks in formal attire.  Young girls in their best springtime frocks presented bouquets to the artists and curtsied to the audience in time-honored fashion (expect the traditional maypole dance in the lobby at tonight’s concert performance of “Luisa Miller”).
   Weill and librettist Bertolt Brecht poured plenty of venom into their 1933, one-act “ballet chante” (ballet with song), commissioned while Weill was in Paris after exiting the Third Reich.  Set for solo soprano and orchestra (plus a dancer in the original), it is the tale of a girl (Anna) sent from her home in Louisiana to make money in the big city so that her family can build a “little home down by the Mississippi.”
   In the guise of the seven deadly sins, we see Anna compromise her values (art, self respect, feelings of justice, true love) to “make it” in the real world.  Thus she peddles her flesh in a cabaret (to adhere to higher art would be pride), ignores abuse of co-workers as a Hollywood extra (to protest would be anger), starves herself to fulfill a contract in Philadelphia (to eat would be gluttony) and abandons a man she truly loves for a sugar daddy in Boston (her love is equated with lust).  So it goes until her pockets are full and she can return to her family and enjoy the house her self-denial has built.
   It is a not-too-veiled attack on “the end justifies the means” rationale adopted by governments (not just Nazi Germany) as well as individuals in their daily lives.
   LuPone, garbed in a black chiffon pants-dress strode up and down the stage in front of the Cincinnati Symphony as Anna I, the world-wise, pragmatic daughter always dialoguing with her unseen alter-ego, the naïve, idealistic Anna II (originally a dancer).  “Mind what the Good Book tells us when it says, ‘resist not evil,'” she sang as Anna I urges Anna II to conform to the ways of the world.  (Surtitles, even for works sung in English like the Weill, are being utilized for all of the May Festival Music Hall concerts this season.)
     Anna’s family were a barbershop quartet, the father and two brothers dressed in black vests and straw hats (baritone Jeremy Kelly and tenors Rodrick Dixon and John Aler), the fourth (bass James Creswell) in a flowered dress and wig as Anna’s mother.  Their prayers monitored Anna’s progress:  “Show her the way that leads the good to Thy reward.  Incline her heart to observe all Thy commandments, that her works on earth may prosper.”
   Particularly juicy was their take on gluttony, where the four promise Anna “golden biscuits spread with honey” when she returns to Louisiana.
   LuPone’s lusty voice conveyed the earthiness of the piece, while Conlon and the CSO laid out Weill’s distinctive pop/classical canvas with zest:  “sloth” was never so swift, “pride” never so raunchy, “envy” never so bitter.  Weill, one of the voices silenced during the Nazi era whom Conlon has championed in an unprecedented series of performances and recordings, shone here as a true classic who speaks for the ages.
   Following intermission, May Festival board president Timothy Stautberg, senior vice president and chief financial officer of the E.W. Scripps Company, acknowledged Conlon’s unparalleled contributions to the May Festival and announced a “significant gift” by an anonymous donor to the May Festival Chorus’ Fund for Artistic Excellence and Advancement.
   The 130-voice May Festival Chorus and 60-voice Youth Chorus stepped into the spotlight in Mozart’s Requiem, where they sang with utmost precision and color.
   The four soloists, soprano Rebekah Camm, mezzo-soprano Lauren McNeese, Aler and bass Kristinn Sigmundsson, made a balanced ensemble, applying their ample voices with calibrated intensity.  Camm’s soprano was edged with almost startling sweetness in the opening “Requiem aeternam,” where she cast an ethereal light.  
   The Chorus was the true star here, however.  Directed by Robert Porco (whose own 20th anniversary will be celebrated next season) and James Bagwell (Youth Chorus), they everywhere expressed Mozart’s dramatic intent.  The men gave a vigorous attack to “Kyrie” and to “Rex tremendae,” where they were answered by the gentle “Salva me” of the women.  There was the same strong contrast in “Confutatis,” where the sopranos offered a soft supplication for mercy.
   You could almost feel raindrops falling in “Lacrymosa dies illa” (“day filled with tears”), after which Conlon took a long pause, allowing the chorus to sit for a moment before continuing.
   Following were the “Offertorium,” with fine ensemble work by chorus and soloists, a robust choral “Sanctus” and a lovely, lyrical “Benedictus” by the vocal quartet.  Conlon, who led without a score, guided his forces to a big, bold open fifth at the end where “perpetual light” did seem to shine on the 136-year-old Cincinnati May Festival.
   Concerts continue with Verdi’s “Luisa Miller” at 8 p.m. tonight (May 23) at Music Hall (led by Conlon).  Porco and Bagwell will conduct choral works by Thomas Morley, Randall Thompson and Hindemith, Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G Minor and Brahms’ “Zigeunerlieder” (“Gypsy Songs”) at 8 p.m. Sunday in the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky.