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(Above: Vocal Arts Society; Right: By Kurt Pinter)
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Christopher Maltman
Ten years ago, an unknown British baritone named Christopher Maltman launched his career by winning the Lieder Prize at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in Wales.
Friday night at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, Maltman proved he's still worthy of the prestigious award, delivering songs by Claude Debussy, Hugo Wolf, Franz Schubert, Henri Duparc and Peter Warlock that radiated detail, drama and color.
Nothing about Maltman is manufactured. He's a natural singer with a fluid voice built of strong, brushed copper in the middle register, dark rounded oak in the low end, and a tenor's ping in his expansive high range. Instead of an acquired acting style, Maltman's appears to be inborn.
He embodied the frenzy in Wolf's eerie "Der Feuerreiter," where the skeleton of a "fire rider," with his bony horse, flakes into ash in a burning mill. Maltman sneered, whispered and cajoled. He converted the four-minute song into the kind of colorful, creepy nightmare that keeps you unsettled for a few days.
Duparc's "Phydilé" couldn't be more opposite. The way Maltman caressed the repeated phrase "Repose ô Phydilé" was aching and sensual, never over-perfumed. Even vowels in single words, like "wo" in Schubert's "Der Wanderer" were carefully dabbed with color.
Warlock is far from England's greatest composer, but Maltman achieved something exceptional with his drinking song "Captain Stratton's Fancy." Through the personality in his phrasing, he gave the jaunty tune just the right strut, as if aglow with the confidence of his first mug of rum.
Maltman's set of Debussy songs showed softness, restraint and the enormous talents of accompanying pianist Julius Drake, who was equally engaged all evening.
-- Tom Huizenga
Hermine Haselböck
The incomparably rich German lieder tradition can scarcely be encompassed in one concert -- or a dozen. The "An das Lied" recitals at the Austrian Embassy are not intended to be comprehensive, but to offer samples of songs from the Viennese classical era to today.
It was turn-of-the-20th-century time on Saturday night, with mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck, elegantly accompanied by pianist Volker Nemmer, presenting more than 30 songs written between 1890 and 1908 by Alexander Zemlinsky, Franz Schreker and Alban Berg.
