A few weeks ago, colleague offered me tickets to go up to Spivey Hall on the campus of Clayton State University to see a performance. She and her husband are contributing members to the concert series there and had tickets they couldn't use. The concert seemed like it would be a string ensemble and I jumped at the chance to take my wife out on a date that would allow us to dress up for an afternoon of culture.
Sunday morning I looked up the concert on the web to get directions and found that the concert was a little different than I had thought. Along with Les Violons du Roy there would be a mezzo-soprano, Ms. Magdelena Korenza, performing. Now, as I've documented here before, I'm not one of those people who really likes opera and sopranos are probably my least favorite operatic singers. The typical compositions written for sopranos tend to want to show off the remarkable range of the performer's voice at the expense of both melody and harmony. Additionally, the pieces tend to be, in my mind, intermitably long. Now, I am aware that to the opera fan these views are heretical and make me a philistine but that's really how I feel.
After some discussion, I decided we should still take the opportunity given us to dress us and make an afternoon date something a bit special.
Boy, am I ever glad we did.
The selections were from French operas by Rameau, Gluck and Rebel with the first selection in each "set" highlighting the Violons and the final pieces being arias sung by Ms. Korenza. The instrumental music was wonderfully performed and all three composers placed a strong emphasis on harmony which made the listening much less tiresome. I enjoy more modern classical music but like improvizational jazz, it can take a lot of effort to appreciate. In terms of the arias, the key word was "mezzo" before the soprano. Her range was much more pleasant to my ear and since the composers had eschewed overly florid composition in favor of creating music that carried the listener along with the emotive feel of the piece I was much more able to appreciate the music even though it was sung in french. I particularly enjoyed the Violons' rendition of Rebel's The Elements.
Spivey Hall was a beautiful and intimate space for such an affair and we plan to try and go again to some of the concerts that are a little less expensive and maybe a bit quirkier. March 18th there is a Celtic group coming that we'd like to check out and there are some classical guitarists in the future as well we may try and see.
All and all, it made for a very nice Sunday afternoon.
Thanks for reading.
