The Hills Are Alive with the Seeds of Music
Have you heard of the line, “It’s Sinatra’s world, we just live in it”? Last night, at Carnegie Hall, as I sat and witnessed another phenomenal performer cast a spell on her audience, I was reminded of the simple message it aims to convey: a great artist has the power to conjure a different universe. In her new show, EDEN, the American mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato did just that. Lucky were those of us who got to witness the world she created in front of our eyes, in an evening that left the audience transfixed, transported, and, possibly, transformed. Far from a traditional recital where a famous singer might merely present her biggest hits, this was a carefully conceived and meticulously crafted ensemble piece that pulled all the stops, involving bold musical choices, minutely choreographed staging, dramatic lighting, a minimalist, subtly moving set, and, for the grand finale, a chorus.
The concert began in utter silence. The musicians of the Il Pomo d’Oro Ensemble, led by its conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, took their places onstage, and a hush fell over the auditorium as the lights dimmed. After a long, courageously extended pause that thoroughly settled the room and effectively sealed it from the outside world, the mystical chords of Charles Yves’s The Unanswered Question slowly emerged, like light into darkness. Suddenly, an luminous human voice joined in, expanding in space, trying to articulate something that had not yet taken shape in the world. We were witnessing the beginning of time. We were in the garden of Eden, and DiDonato, sending out her gentle, wordless clarion call into the resonating space from the back of the Stern auditorium, gradually made her way to the elevated, round black platform that awaited her onstage. From there, she took us on a spell-binding musical odyssey of wonder, grief, exaltation, lament, gratitude and quietude. She became at turns a high priestess, a rousing and singing folk dancer, a caring mother, a bereft lover, and an angel. The music hardly ever let up for applause between numbers, held tightly together by Emelyanychev, who, during Gluck’s vigorous Danza degli Spettri e delle Furie, left the seat of his harpsichord and, weaving his expressive hands about the stage like a sorcerer casting a spell, wrought a visceral force and expressivity out of the orchestra that should make everyone reexamine their opinion about baroque music: I, for one, cannot think of anything more breathtaking or engaging.
With EDEN, DiDonato and Il Pomo D’Oro have created a perfect environment that allowed her to be both fully at ease and in complete command of her instrument and her craft. At times, her voice, moving swiftly from Gluck and Händel to Copeland and Mahler, seemed to make the entire auditorium expand like a balloon that fills up with warm air; other times, she managed to magically condense space itself into one point in which one quiet note bore the weight of an entire world. Occasionally, she dipped into deep growls and earthy, guttural tones, chewing syllables like big bones before flinging them back out into space with what in the dance world we call controlled abandon. Again and again, she proved that she had not only thought deeply about ways to conjure an alternate universe, but had taught herself how to step into it and fully inhabit it, never once falling into the mode of presenting music: She was not merely singing, she was allowing us to witness a human in the process of becoming music– totally free, barefoot, no less, dressed in a soft silver gown, often literally crawling around on her platform, not shying away from literally wailing when the music called for it, letting sound emanate from her with a force that at times made my hair stand up, only to then resolve into moments of exquisite tenderness and vulnerability. In addition to the round platform, the show, directed by Marie Lambert-Le Bihan, utilized symbolic fragments of a broken world that slowly rotated around DiDonato, who proceeded throughout the evening to gradually reassemble them until they formed two silver circles that at last framed her like the circle around Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. Even the supertitles were handled with the greatest care and timing, merely announcing the lyrics and mercifully disappearing instead of displaying any redundant repeats, avoiding any unnecessary diversion of focus from the actual performance. The dynamic and high-powered light show by John Torres that often flooded the entire auditorium with abstract projections, something rarely seen in classical concerts, added another visual element of wonder that pulled the audience even deeper into the realm of magic.
DiDonato closed the program with Mahler’s moving Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, presenting it as an ode to stillness, showing that a gentle detachment of worldly matters can be both liberating and regenerative. Despite all the emotional upheaval humans have to live with on this earth, harmony and stillness may be achieved after all.
After a soaring and lush encore, “Schmerzen” from Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, DiDonato led us back down to earth with her mission statement about the importance of planting the seeds for a better future, leading the way by inviting a chorus of young children to the stage, assembling them around her like a modern day Maria von Trapp and joining them to sing the anthem of the evening, Seeds of Hope, a song that had been jointly written for the Eden project by young members of the Bishop Ramsey School in England. She then closed the show with Händel’s Ombra Mai Fu, which she explicitly dedicated to the children around her, singing it to them like a gentle caress, a final reminder that seedlings need tender love and care. There is hope that a healthy percentage of the audience in attendance last night – and at every EDEN concert – will find ways to apply their own love and care to the package of seeds included in the program notes.
There is a lot of timely talk about how to save classical music from oblivion in a world that is increasingly ruled by media and technology, about finding ways to make new generations engage with live classical music – and nature. Joyce DiDonato and Il Pomo d’Oro are showing us how it may be done: with a strong artistic vision that highlights the power of intergenerational collaboration; the intelligent use of technology that underscores but never overshadows the performers; and a generous spirit that is invested in drawing in and reaching out to the next generation. To quote from DiDonato’s program notes, what are you going to plant today?