US recital debut: English soprano Kate Royal

English soprano Kate Royal makes her US recital debut this Friday night (March 28, 2008) at Spivey Hall. Ms. Royal has generated significant excitement among fans of great singing, principally through her appearances in opera at the Glyndebourne Festival, the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera Covent Garden and the English National Opera, as well as in concert appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic and at the BBC Proms in London. She's given recitals in London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Cologne. I first knew of her from her Hyperion recording of Schumann Lieder with Graham Johnson, and then received from her London management an early copy of her debut CD for EMI Classics, for which she now records exclusively.

After listening to the EMI sessions for about 20 minutes, I picked up the phone, called the UK and invited her to sing in recital here. It's rare that I act so directly (almost impulsively) to engage a new artist, but such artful, gorgeous, beautifully intelligent, nuanced and expressive singing is not commonplace!

Thus I'm proud her North American recital tour begins here at Spivey Hall. Ms. Royal will perform with the excellent pianist Roger Vignoles. From Atlanta they go cross-continent via the Northeast (New York's Frick Collection, Middlebury College and Montreal) to Vancouver, British Columbia and Berkeley, California.

Their program focuses on Spanish songs of Rodrigo and Granados, selections from Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne, three of Debussy's exquisite Cinq poemes de Baudelaire, and to close, a generous offering of Lieder by Richard Strauss, including the Mädchenblumen (Maiden-Flowers), Opus 22, as well as "Einerlei," "Ich wollt ein Sträusslein binden" and "Als mir dein Lied erklang."

One of my duties at Spivey Hall is proofing every program book we publish. There is a vast amount of detailed information presented in program books, especially in those of vocal recitals, for which we always strive to include the original texts and translations (and for chamber music and piano recitals, program notes). Plus there are always the bios of the artists, which artists and managements submit in various degrees of correctness and consistency when it comes to spellings of institutions, musicians and work names, presented in about a dozen languages, for which legitimate variants exist.

This is detailed and highly time-consuming work. Thankfully I don't do it alone -- Sue Volkert and Nick Jones are my valiant comrades in preparing the books, shepherding them through their various versions of edits and more edits, week after week -- but ultimately I have to sign off on them...which is why, on a Sunday afternoon (Easter Sunday, no less), I've just spent three hours poring over four program books.

I do this -- we do this -- because reading the program books is a significant dimension of our audiences' experience when they come here to listen, and making that connection between artist and audience through the performance of fine music is what Spivey Hall is all about. And I tend to read and edit best when it's quiet, people are gone and the phone isn't ringing.

There are times I rant and rave about editing program books, and curse it as an onerous obligation -- there's always so much in addition to this work I could be doing. But more often, reading the material and thinking about the program selections gets me in the mood for the music we're about to hear.

I've just had such an experience, both in recalling and eagerly anticipating the beauty of the Strauss songs. I applaud Ms. Royal for her selections -- not only are they likely to illustrate her artisty to great effect, but the Mädchenblumen, in particular, are to my way of thinking perfectly appropriate for springtime. The German poetry is by Felix Ludwig Julius Dahn, and Ms. Royal's management has kindly supplied (and secured rights to) translations by Emily Ezust, which read naturally, easily, clearly and invitingly...like fresh air.

The songs and their texts are wonderfully evocative -- and indeed timely, since now in Atlanta, even after damaging tornados last weekend and the ferociously heavy rains, it's getting warm, and the trees, the bushes and the flowers are starting to bloom. Spring really is in the air, so these songs, even though they're not about spring flowers, per se, will nonetheless be sung at an opportune moment. Alas, my blog program apparently won't cooperate in listing parallel columns of original texts and translations, but here, at least, is the English. Read for yourself, and see if this doesn't get you in the mood for spring.

Richard Strauss
Mädchenblumen
Op. 22 (Felix Ludwig Julius Dahn)

Kornblumen (1888)
Cornflowers

Cornflowers I call these figures
that gently, with blue eyes,
preside quietly and modestly,
placidly drinking the dew of peace
from their own pure souls,
communicating with everything that is near,
unconscious of the precious sensitivity
that they have received from
the hand of God.
We felt so close to you,
as if you were going through a field of crops
through which the breath of evening blew,
full of pious quietude and full of mildness.

Mohnblumen (1888)
Poppies

They are poppies, those round,
red-blooming, healthy ones
that bloom and bake in the summer
and are always in a cheery mood,
good and happy as a king,
their souls never tired of dancing;
they weep beneath their smiles
and seem born only
to tease the cornflowers;
yet nevertheless,
the softest, best hearts often hide
among the climbing ivy of jests;
God knows one would wish to
suffocate them with kisses
were one not so afraid
that, embracing the hoyden,
would spring up into a full blaze
and go up in flames.

Epheu (1886–8)
Ivy

But ivy is what I call that maiden
with soft words,
with the simple, bright hair,
gently waving brown about her,
with brown, soulful doe’s eyes,
who so often stands in tears,
in her tears simply
irresistible;
without strength and
self-consciousness,
unadorned with secret
blossoms,
yet with an inexhaustible, deep
true inner sentience
that under her own power she can
never yank herself up by the roots;
such are born to twine
lovingly about another life:
upon her first love
she rests her entire life’s fate,
for she is counted among those
rare flowers,
those that only blossom once.

Wasserrose (1886–8)
Water Lily

Do you know the Water Lily,
fairy-like and celebrated in legend?
It waves its colourless,
transparent head
on an ethereal, slender stem,
and it blooms on a reedy pond in a wood;
protected by the lonely swan
that circles round it,
Sit opens only to the
moonlight
whose silver gleam it
shares.
Thus it blooms, the magical
sister of the stars,
desired by the dreamy,
dark moth
which yearns for it from afar on
the edge of the pond,
and never reaches it for all its
yearning.
Water Lily is my name for the
slim,
raven-haired maiden with
alabaster cheeks,
with deep foreboding thoughts
in her eyes,
as if she were a ghost
imprisoned on earth.
Her speech is like the silver
rippling of water,
her silence like the foreboding
stillness of a moonlit night;
she seems to exchange glances
with the stars
who she understands because
their natures are the same;
you can never tire of looking
into her eyes
surrounded by long, silken
lashes,
and, as if bewitched by their
blessed grey,
you believe all fanciful dreams
about fairies to be true.


Dahn's poetry inspired Strauss to write some glorious music. I have high hopes for this Friday, and urge everyone who loves great singing to hear Kate Royal, either here at Spivey Hall, or elsewhere on her Spring 2008 Recital Tour, for I expect it will be a most memorable experience.