Last time we saw Jill Grove on the stage of the SF Opera, she blew us away. She was a glorious Preziosilla in La Forza del Destino, showing up in a full Matrix garb, outfitted like Carrie-Anne Moss's Trinity as we wrote at the time. She came back to San Francisco, a place she now calls home, for a sold-out recital with pianist John Churchwell at the temple Emanu-El. We were sitting in the pew in a lovely cheery room, de-churchitized except for the bibles in the benches, with a blue velvet curtain as backdrop, a green carpet, cream and red ceiling.
The occasion was the Schwabacher recital series, which continues on Sunday, January, 29th, with a recital by Ailyn Pérez. If the smaller setting is not intimate enough you, you can even have dinner with the performers for $50 at Bistro Clement around the corner after the performance.
Picture courtesy of SFopera.com
Jill Grove came back with Trinity's weary frown again, this time to sing elegies and songs of melancholy. Haydn's aria where Ariadne laments Theseus' departure, Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieders, three poems of James Joyce put to song by Barber, and seven Granados-tinged Spanish folk songs from Manuel de Falla. She stood in the elbow of the piano, limiting her motions to a few expressive hand gestures, in her silk burnt orange pants and marching patterned red jacket.
We wished she would lighten up, as her performance was flawless. Her mezzo-soprano voice had the warmth and brass color of a horn in the lower register and maintained a rounded edge even in the forays up the scale. The program displayed her many qualities: articulation and clarity in Italian, German, Spanish; the powerful display of raw emotions, ranging from Ariadne's desperate anger to plain angry anger to the elegies of Wagner's lieders to the naive folk scenes of the de Falla pieces. David Gockley, the SF Opera new general director was in the audience, and we hope he took note and invited her back soon to the main stage.
Particularly wondrous was the last Barber song on a Joyce poem, I hear an army charging upon the land, a bravura piece which we wished she would perform again as an encore. In this piece, the piano part plunged like thundering horses and clanged and clanged as upon an anvil, in a very literal orchestration of the poem, and Jill Grove's voice rose effortlessly above, tormented and passionate. This piece allowed the excellent accompanist, John Churchwell, who provided calm, understated steadyness throughout the evening, to let his hair down and shine as well.
As an encore, instead, Jill did eventually flash a smile to sing a crowd-pleasing "I Left My Heart" somewhere around here, showing a fun side she had not shared with us yet.
Schwabacher Series,
at the temple Emanu-El,
2 Lake St @ Arguello.
Program 2: AILYN PÉREZ
Sunday, January 29, 2006, 5:30 pm
Ailyn Pérez, soprano
Matthew Piatt, piano
Program 3: ELZA VAN DEN HEEVER
Sunday, April 9, 2006, 5:30 pm
Elza van den Heever, soprano
John Parr, piano
Program 4: STEVEN BLIER
Sunday, April 23, 2006, 5:30 pm
Featuring Adler Fellows:
Melody Moore, soprano
Matthew O'Neill, tenor & guitar
and former Adler Fellow, Ricardo Herrera, bass-baritone
4-concert subscription: $50
Single Tickets: $20
Suppers: $50 per person
Opera Box Office at (415) 864-3330
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Dear Cedric: "de-churchitized except for the bibles in the benches"? I may be wrong, but I don't think synagogues have bibles in the benches.
Glad you got a kick out of Ms. Grove's voice.
What were those books, though? I did not open it, I did not need reading, I was quite happy with the concert.
You were in Forza, weren't you? You and Jill are tight, right?
I was in "Forza," but never even said hello to Miss Jill, so we are definitely not tight. That was an awfully big cast, you know. I also put up your review of the production on one of the opera house basement bulletin boards because it was quite well written.
Mike, woaw, thanks for putting the review on a board there. That's pretty cool.