The Standing Room

Choices

[N]o demos al dolor más territorio:
     let's not give grief an even greater field.
no hay extensión como la que vivimos.
     No expanse is greater than where we live.

—from Sonnet XCII of Pablo Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets

The last iteration of "Amor... amor...", which closes Neruda Songs, had just faded when I reached my stop coming home tonight. I stepped out of the subway and found myself in a throng of protesters decrying our government's decision to escalate the war—against reasonable argument, against the clearly voiced desires of the electorate, against the wishes of those we claim to be helping, against common sense.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's voice singing her husband's music made me consider how hard these two people fought to hold onto the joy in their life, openly and honestly celebrating their love, delighting in living, caressing and savoring the limited time together that fate had offered them. Together, two people created in the Neruda Songs an artifact of beauty, of universal poetry.

Even though the piece had ended, I didn't take my earbuds out when I came out of the station. I didn't want to let the sharp shouts of the protesters remind me that somehow we have given power to a deluded, callous man who is completely comfortable allowing other people to die for a vain cause. For pride. For ideology.

Two people chose to create in the face of a death they could not avoid; one person chooses to chase destruction when given the opportunity to prevent death and suffering. No demos al dolor más territorio.

Greetings, Symphonists

To any readers who found their way here via Symphony Magazine, a warm welcome to TSR. This-a-way to the Lorraine Hunt Lieberson posts.

The unattributed quote from the article is by Patrick Vaz at The Reverberate Hills; that-a-way to his beautiful post on LHL.

(I trust that by this point  you know where to find Alex Ross.)

Thanks to Mlle J— for pointing out the article.

LHL + LA Phil

I hope Grant Barnes won't mind my pulling this comment onto the front page of the blog:

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was scheduled to sing in the Mahler Third with the Los Angeles Philharmonic this weekend. Salonen asked that the following be placed in the program: “The Los Angeles Philharmonic dedicates these performances to the memory of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.”

In the pre-concert talk to about 400 people in the attached ARCO Hall Friday evening (which is scheduled to be uploaded Monday onto the LA Phil’s website), Salonen said that he hadn’t wanted to talk about her but, perhaps sensing the warmth of the audience, did so, describing her as “unique,” and saying that “sometimes these people appear who seem to have it all.” He first said how hopeless it was to describe musical phenomena with words and then went on to describe LHL’s “incredible quality of being everywhere in the room, no matter what size, at the same time” and the “intense presence of this beautiful thing.” He recalled an “amazing” experience when he started rehearsing with her “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.”

Salonen said that she had “a habit” of always rehearsing facing the orchestra in order to establish emotional contact with the players. When she got to the point in the Mahler of describing a “beautiful tree to fall asleep under forever,” the orchestra couldn’t continue playing, “the wind players were in tears,” and so she sang the piece to the end without the orchestra, presumably continuing to face them, full-on in the intense emotion of the moment.

Then, Deborah Borda quoted LHL to the effect that she was in the business of soaring, and left the memorial moments at that.

In Mahler's Third, the last words the alto sings are, "Ach komm und erbarme dich über mich."

I'm grateful the San Francisco Symphony chose to memorialize her by dedicating music, her soul, back to her.

An mp3 of the talk is up. The discussion of Lorraine begins around 27 minutes in, but it's preceded by a wonderfully articulate description of Mahler 3 that's worth hearing. (FYI, the LA Phil has started recording their Upbeat Live pre-performance talks and distributing them as podcasts.)

Curious

I find it interesting that the San Francisco Symphony dedicated its first concert set of the season (Brahms 4 + Dawn Upshaw singing Lukas Foss's Time Cycle) to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, with a full-page remembrance...

...whereas the San Francisco Opera didn't even list her in memoriam.

The Last Word

Open Source, a one-hour radio program distributed on NPR by Public Radio International, had Peter Sellars, Craig Smith of Emmanuel Music, oboist Peggy Pearson, and countertenor Drew Minter on today, talking about their colleague Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. If you hang around for the full program, you'll also hear the voices of Patty Oboeinsight, freshly-minted New Mexico resident ACB, and at the very end, your host here on KTSR, Monsieur C—. Local airtimes here; Open Source podcast subscripton here.

7/14 Update: Full program available here (24MB, mp3). You can just skip ahead to 48:27.

In Rotation: LHL

LHL gets her own In Rotation post. Click here for background on the list.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: Bach Cantatas, BWV 82 and 199	Lorraine Hunt: Arias for Durastanti (Handel)	Lorraine Hunt: Live from Wigmore Hall	Hunt, McGegan: Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook	Lorraine Hunt Lieberson/ Bicket: Handel Arias

Lorraine Hunt, Kent Nagano: Phaedra (Britten)	Upshaw, Hunt Lieberson, White/ Nagano: El Niño (Adams)	Lorraine Hunt/ McGegan: Handel Arias	Lorraine Hunt, BSO/ Ozawa: Pelléas et Mélisande (Fauré)	Hunt, Les Arts Florissants: Médée (Charpentier)

Perry, Perry, Hunt, Labelle (dir. Sellars): Don Giovanni (Mozart)	Hunt, et al./ Norrington: The Fairy Queen (Purcell)	SF Symph, Bayrakdarian, Hunt Lieberson/ MTT: Mahler, Symph No. 2	Upshaw, Hunt, Daniels, Croft/ Christie (dir. Sellars): Theodora (Handel)	Hunt, Saffer, Dean/ McGegan: Dido and Aeneas (Purcell)

Kurt Ollman, Lorraine Hunt: Kerner Lieder, Mignon Lieder (Schumann)	Hunt, Feldman, Minter/ McGegan: Clori, Tirsi e Fileno (Handel)	Hunt, Feldman, Minter, Parker/ McGegan: Susanna - Highlights (Handel)

The first recording of hers I ever got was the compilation of Handel arias that she recorded with Nic McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque in the late '80s/early '90s. It's impossible to say how many times I've listened to that recording, and yet I never cease to find something to marvel at. How often do you actually look forward to a da capo?

The most astonishing recital I've ever witnessed was her performance at Hertz Hall in Berkeley on a Sunday afternoon in September 2002. For two hours she and we collectively faced our mortality straight on. It was harrowing, exhausting, and profoundly moving. Afterwards, several friends and I gathered outside and sat in silence for around half an hour, recovering and reflecting. The final piece on the program (prior to the three encores, PDF here) was "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen," from Mahler's Rückert-Lieder. I'm glad to have a recording of her 1998 Wigmore performance of these songs.

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,
     I am lost to the world
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben,
     with which I used to waste so much time,
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,
     It has heard nothing from me for so long
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!
     that it may very well believe that I am dead!

Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen,
     It is of no consequence to me
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält,
     Whether it thinks me dead;
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,
     I cannot deny it,
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.
     for I really am dead to the world.

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,
     I am dead to the world's tumult,
Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet!
     And I rest in a quiet realm!
Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel,
     I live alone in my heaven,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!
     In my love and in my song!

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, 1954-2006

July 11 update:

Ein Gott vermags. Wie aber, sag mir, soll
     A god can do it. But will you tell me how
ein Mann ihm folgen durch die schmale Leier?
      a man can enter through the lyre's strings?
...
Gesang ist Dasein. Für den Gott ein Leichtes.
      Song is reality. Simple, for a god.
Wann aber sind wir? Und wann wendet er
     but when can WE be real? When does he pour
an unser Sein die Erde und die Sterne?
     the earth, the stars, into us?

This Sonnet to Orpheus by Rilke has been on my mind ever since Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's death last week. Gesang ist Dasein. Song is Reality. Music is Existence. Singing is Being. To sing in Truth is a different breath, indeed.

We like to label our favorite singers "divas"—goddesses—for being superhuman and for transcending mundane reality. But Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was not larger than life; rather, she exposed life at its largest. She was not beyond human, beyond reality; instead, she went unflinchingly to the extremes of what being human means. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson transformed human existence into song. Simple, for an immortal god. But how extraordinary that mortal Lorraine found a path through the strings of Orpheus' lyre.

Thank you, Lorraine, for your openness, your honesty, your generosity. I am grateful for your willingness to share your being with us through your singing, and for giving us a glimpse of that path.

Then Jesus said to it, "Raise up, palm, and be strong, and be a companion of my trees which are in my Father's Paradise. Open a water course beneath your roots which is hidden in the earth, and from it let flow waters to satisfy us."

And the palm raised itself at once, and fountains of water, very clear and cold and wet, began to pour out through the roots.

—Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (via El Niño)

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Elsewhere on TSR:

In Rotation: LHL
links to recordings

The Last Word
links to radio program with Peter Sellars, Craig Smith and others remembering LHL

~~~~~~

Le Monde : Lorraine Hunt, mezzo-soprano nord-américaine
Machart: "chanté avec une douleur de chair presque insupportable d'intensité"

Opera Data Base Forums - Adieu Lorraine Hunt
"Tout ce qu'elle chantait était en même temps solide comme le marbre et vraiment humain"

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson - The Times
"Being ill, she found, had changed the way she sang. Until then she had been dogged by perfectionism — 'Silly, really, because perfection isn’t what moves me when I listen to inspirational singers'"

NY Observer - An Inner Light Extinguished: Farewell to a Great Singer
Charles Michener on LHL: "she was not just raging at what she perceived to be another performer’s wrong choices, but talking fiercely to herself about the danger of indulging in histrionics at the expense of truth"

A True Inspiration - Times
Richard Morrison: "her transcendental courage and the grace of her artistry steadied my own nerve and renewed my spirit at a dark time. Does that sound trite and sentimental? I hope not, because it happens to be true." (scroll down)

Open Source » Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Remembered
her recording of the bach cantatas "have always verged on being too much to bear. But now these cantatas... are simply overwhelming" (see comments for note by steve ledbetter)

SF Classical Voice | TRIBUTE - In Memoriam: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, 1954-2006
"Lorrie Hunt, came forward to sing 'My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice,' from Saint-Saens' Samson and Delilah. ... She simply stood there and sang... There was even some smolder to this 16-year-old's delivery of the seductress' aria."

Bank of America Celebrity Series: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, 1954-2006
more links

Opera News > Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, 52, Effulgent Mezzo-Soprano, Has Died
"it was perhaps her honesty as a musician that made her singing so distinctive. The fierce purity of her intention was at times almost startling; through scrupulous, rigorous preparation, she achieved performances of rare spontaneity"

Stereophile: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
"She just stood there,... dropped deep within herself, and sang. No show biz, no indicating or demonstrating, no having the audience's emotional response for them. It was one of the most powerful concerts either of us has ever attended."

Sieglinde's Diaries: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
"what I will remember most of all is the physical impact of that sound: an austere resonance that the gut knows, not from bitter song or poignant art, but from the recurrent trudge of the falling human life"

Chron | Appreciation / Focus, passion are Hunt Lieberson's musical legacy
Kosman: "No one who heard LHL perform that scene at the War Memorial Opera House--it was in 1998, in her only appearance at the San Francisco Opera--could possibly forget it" aaaaMEN, sistah; far and away the most gripping moment I've seen on that stage

Slate | Voice, Over - Remembering the mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. By Marc Geelhoed
on LHL's final performance, of Mahler 2: "The words seemed to have been pulled from deep within her as she imparted how she would, as the song says, ascend into Heaven and achieve peace when she is reunited with God."

LA Times: An Appreciation - Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: Fearless, onstage and in life
Swed: "Death, she reminded us time and again, was not to be feared, not if you understood it as the thing that makes life meaningful. Come to terms with it and every waking minute matters."

The Reverberate Hills: As with rosy steps the morn. . . .
an extraordinary personal reminiscence from a longtime follower: "this morning in my tatty cubicle at work I put on her Handel arias and had to take my headphones off when I started to cry too much for a woman I never met"

KUAT-FM Cue Sheet | LHL in the Archives
"My simplistic description is that it’s a kind of heart-voice, where the heart and the voice are connected, and the voice goes right to your heart, and there’s an opening, and when the heart opens is what makes you cry." -LHL

Paul Viapiano - Guitarist | The Voice
"Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s voice was soaring over my head…literally, three feet above me. It was on fire with the intensity of ten suns"

oboeinsight : So Many Tributes
"I've never seen (or read) anything like this before" (I got the news via voicemail from ACB)

St. Botolph's Town: Gravitas
"I never heard her live: I honestly thought there would be plenty of time"

Philadelphia Inquirer | A vocalist who invaded the soul
"If the less-pretentious Lieberson achieved goddess status among her admirers, it was conferred upon her, rather than something she sought.... The sense of honesty that she exemplified ... was what circumvented any possibilities of diva affectation."

Night After Night: Requiescat.
"the Liebersons included in some recital programs Bob Telson's poignant 'I Am Calling You'" (omg, just imagine how amazing that must have been)

Telegraph | Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Peter Sellars: "a primal feminine force that connects the earth to the sky with lightning bolts"  - i would add that she also connected listeners to the core of the earth and the core of her being, with a still energy even more powerful than lightning

Guardian | Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
"She had an extraordinary capacity for emotional connection, such that her performances seemed to penetrate the very marrow of those fortunate enough to witness them."

Sequenza21/ Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Remembered
a number of msm links (tx, jerry)

NPR : Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Remembered
a concert performance from last May

parterre box presents Unnatural Acts of Opera: Waft her, angels
lhl, on unnatural acts

Obituary: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; her luminous voice lifted Boston Symphony Orchestra, transported listener - The Boston Globe
Richard Dyer: "When Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sang, time itself stopped to listen."

journal.nonesuch.com: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
"Nonesuch mourns the loss of our friend, the incomparable mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson" -  stream entire LHL bach album for free

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, 52; Mezzo-Soprano of Great Range - Los Angeles Times
"I like to listen to singers where I feel the direct openness of the heart in the voice. It's not a veiled presentation. That's what I want to do when I sing for people." -LHL

On An Overgrown Path: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson - one of the rare elect
"an artist of the highest order as well as a woman full of heart -- a true daughter of the muses"

PlaybillArts | La Divina è morta: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Mezzo Often Compared to Callas, Has Died at Age 52
obit

ionarts: Pray for Us, Lorraine
LHL on ionarts

Counter/Point 3.0: Consummate Artist: Violist, Singer, Avatar
"she was the page liberated"

AP: Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson dies at 52
"People would forget all that is conventional in opera. People would forget even her singing; they would just feel something so deep and true."

Once Upon a Time...: An Angel, Ever Bright and Fair
"Genuinely extraordinary artists ... make us remember, in the very deepest sense, what it is to be human."

My Favorite Intermissions: Gone
irreplaceable

the concert: LHL
"hoping against hope"

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Luminous Mezzo, Dies at 52 - New York Times
obit by tommasini

Prima la musica, poi le parole: Lorraine
"Defend her, Heav'n! Let angels spread/ Their viewless tents around her bed."

Life and Times of a Music Dork: RIP Sweet Muse
"Welt, ich bleibe nicht mehr hier"

Night After Night: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson 1954-2006.
"Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott"

The Rest Is Noise: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Schlummert ein

Iron Tongue of Midnight: LHL
"'Addio, Roma' was a slow, slow walk downstage, and again, she drew the eye in a way I've seen only from her." Indeed

oboeinsight: Very Sad News
LHL

The Evening's Playlist

Act I: The Monk Set
Atlas, Act III
Dawn and Fields/Clouds from Book of Days
Astronaut Anthem from Do You Be

O, how I hope I get to sing Astronaut Anthem. Fingers crossed...

Act II: The Fritz Set
O Freunde, so leeret in vollen Zügen (aka Libiamo from Traviata)
Wohin seid ihr entschwunden (aka Lensky's aria from Onegin)
Und in des Tempels Grund (aka Au fond du Temple Saint from Pearl Fishers)
Granada (auf Deutsch, natürlich)
O sole mio
Funiculi Funicula

Fritz Wunderlich, 1930-1966. Crying is not an unreasonable response. Granted, it's the most martial Temple Saint you'll ever hear, but that sound! Full throated yet with that German brightness and clarity. I never cease to be amazed.

Act III: The Ombra Set
Fritz
LHL
Renéeeeeeee
Marilyn Horne

Lorraine, may thunder, lightning and tempests never disturb your peace, nor may you be profaned by stormy winds. Never was the shade of a tree more delightful and cherished. Could the difference between animating poetry and flaunting The Beautiful Voice be any more marked?

Act IV: The Cortot Set
A whole lotta Chopin

Courtesy of OMC.* The weirdest, most deliberately idiosyncratic 4th Ballade I've ever heard.

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* Confidential to Heather: Op. 31, no. 3. Consider this an official invitation from OMC to a listening party one evening—piano recordings only.

Doctor Atomic: Curtain down

Standing room was apparently sold out for the closing night of Doctor Atomic. By the time I showed up yesterday morning (around 9:15), people had already finished their Egg McMuffins and pulled out decks of cards. It was clear that people who weren't regular opera goers had turned out for this, because the line had formed on the other side of the lobby. Surprisingly disorienting.

I've found that when the standing room gets a little cozy, the needle flies off the Beeeeeeyotch-o-meter, and so it was last night. Last time I remember it being like this was for Dawn Upshaw and Thomas Allen in Cunning Little Vixen, when there was a woman who tried to cut the line by literally body-blocking me to prevent me from getting in the doorway. Last night we had a woman (who had gotten some serious training in biotech) squeezing herself into a space along the rail after everyone else had already staked out her territory, and then pushing other's peoples' clothes aside and jabbing her elbows into her neighbors (i.e., me). Confidential to Mme. Super-Beyotch: If you stop your self-righteous complaining and pause to think for a moment, it will become obvious that my suit jacket laid on the rail is in fact the width of my fairly slender body and not the width of three people, as you claim.

And yet, despite the evildoers and the inconvenience of standing for three hours (plus the lecture, because I had to protect my spot from Mme. Super-B's encroachment), I was glad to be there. Final brain dump in the second part of this post.

Oh, nooooo!!!: Act II

DISASTER! This Playbill article comes via Iron Tongue:

Kristine Jepsen Replaces Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in Doctor Atomic
By Ben Mattison
July 19, 2005

Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson will miss the world-premiere performances of John Adams' Doctor Atomic at San Francisco Opera, SFO announced. Lieberson has canceled a series of performances because of a back injury sustained earlier this year. According to San Francisco Opera, "Ms. Lieberson's doctors have advised her that she must withdraw from the production in order to allow more time for the healing process." Kristine Jepsen will replace Lieberson in the role of Kitty Openheimer.

News of other cancellations here, here, and here. Best wishes to Lorraine for a speedy recovery—we will miss your presence sorely come October.

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Oh, nooooo!!!: Act I here.