Olivier Messiaen: Chants de terre et de ciel; Alexander Scriabin: Poème-nocturne, op. 61; Alexander Scriabin: Vers la flamme, op. 72; John Zorn: Jumalattaret. Barbara Hannigan, soprano; Bertrand Chamayou, piano. Koerner Hall, November 28, 2024.
As I am writing this review, it’s a full 12 hours after I heard Barbara Hannigan at Koerner Hall last evening. Yet I am still feeling the afterglow of her extraordinary recital. In my 60-plus years of attending classical vocal concerts, I have never witnessed anything quite like hers last evening. To get into the “Barbara Hannigan Mood,” I attended her masterclass on Thursday. Her pedagogical style, like her performance, was amazing, and it sure prepared me for concert!
When I was leaving Koerner Hall after the recital, I thought back to my 2001 interview with the distinguished Canadian soprano and voice teacher Mary Morrison. I vividly recall her mentioning Barbara Hannigan as one of her most promising students, destined to have a significant career. I just heard this morning that Morrison was in the audience. I am sure she is pleased that Hannigan has fulfilled that promise 23 years ago, spectacularly so.
Like her teacher, Barbara Hannigan is that rare breed of singers with a fervent devotion to new music. Fearless, unique, adventurous, and passionate are just a few adjectives that describe her artistry. Given that my musical tastes tend towards the traditional, Hannigan’s repertoire often takes me out of my comfort zone. Yet I am always struck by her power of communication and her total commitment. I may or may not warm to the work itself, but her performances never, ever, leave me indifferent.
Olivier Messiaen: Chants de terre et de ciel; Alexander Scriabin: Poème-nocturne, op. 61; Alexander Scriabin: Vers la flamme, op. 72
Last evening was no exception. It was a 70-minute program (without intermission) of two song cycles, by Olivier Messiaen and John Zorn. In between were two Scriabin piano solos played by the marvelous French pianist Bertrand Chamayou. I confess that the primary focus of this review is on Hannigan the singer, but I don’t want to neglect the excellent pianism of Monsieur Chamayou, who played with character and luminous beauty in the two Scriabin pieces. In the two song cycles, he was incredibly supportive and in perfect synch with the soprano, especially in the John Zorn work. I hope to hear him in a solo recital in the future.
My modest exposure to Messiaen’s vocal music was primarily his “Poémes pour Mi” (1936), which is quite frequently programmed. It’s set to Messiaen’s own text, and deals with the spiritual struggles and fulfillment of marriage. Incidentally, the work is dedicated to his wife Claire Delbos, whose nickname is “Mi.” A devout Catholic, many of Messiaen songs have a strong spiritual core, especially in “Poemes pour Mi” and “Chants de terre et de ciel” (1938).
The second cycle was the one on the program last evening. Set to text by the composer, it a meditation on marriage, fatherhood and Catholic faith by Messiaen — his son Pascal was born around the time of composition. In just under 30 minutes, it’s a technically demanding work for the voice. Hannigan sang affectingly, with ethereal beauty and purity of tone. Her crystalline quality was a pleasure to the ear, though beauty was never at the expense of the drama, which she delivered in spades.
Zorn: Jumalattaret
If musically the Messiaen cycle has contemporary resonance, John Zorn’s “Jumalattaret” is off-the-chart in its new music sensibilities. It’s full of what’s best described as extra-vocal utterances, sounds that one would not encounter in a traditional classical song cycle. The only other work I heard that’s closest stylistically was way back in my student days in the 1960s, hearing mezzo Cathy Berberian singing “Sequenza III”, a piece by her husband and avant-garde composer Luciano Berio. Hannigan has sung the Zorn cycle back in 2019 in New York, with pianist Stephen Gosling. Billed as unsingable by many, it held no terror for Hannigan, and she had a triumph.
Given the complexity of the Zorn cycle, Hannigan used the score. She began with Sprechstimme, much like Schönberg’s “Pierrot lunaire.” Then it morphed into various types of wordless vocalises and other amazing vocal effects, all executed flawlessly, and usually with little vibrato. Her focused sound was nothing short of astounding.
As the eight songs of the cycle progressed, it got wilder, for lack of a better word.
Chamayou would pluck the piano strings, and Hannigan would direct her various utterances towards the pianist. It created a soundscape unlike any I had experienced in the past. It was positively mesmerizing. That said, I don’t want to give the impression that it’s all gimmicky and without substance, because it is not. She was faithful to the central core of meaning of this work: a song cycle in praise of the nine Finnish goddesses out of Sami Shamanism. It’s a piece that involves traditional folk song sensibilities as well as various vocal gymnastics. It sure stretches the singing voice to extremes, and the fearless Hannigan managed it spectacularly.
It’s too complicated to go into in this review, but we audience members benefited greatly from the printed program which includes comments from the singer and the composer on the raison d’etre of the work. That said, the severely darkened theatre, coupled with the lack of projected titles made it impossible to know what was being sung. I understand that the likely reason for the dim lighting was to enhance audience focus on the performance, but since it’s an unfamiliar work, it really should have been accompanied by projected translations.
Final Thoughts
Sitting there listening to Hannigan’s vocal highwire act, I recalled asking Mary Morrison 23 years ago if the treacherous vocal demands of new music is dangerous for the voice. Her response was an emphatic, “NO!” She said that if one sings with a good technique, it’s not a problem.
Hannigan is the best example of the Morrison philosophy — after so many years of singing new music, Hannigan’s tone remains pure and beautiful, without any blemish or excessive vibrato. If anything, it has grown in volume. In one of the later songs in the Zorn piece, I had ringing in my ears from a fortissimo high note. Kudos to the audience for being incredibly well behaved and attentive — I did not hear a single cough the whole evening, and you could hear a pin drop.
All in all, an extraordinary recital given by one of Canada’s best. If you missed the recital, do listen to the Zorn work here.
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