Verbier Festival

I've joined the ranks of little old ladies from Florida who fly across the ocean to hear their favorite singer. Either that or Rene Pape has become so legendary that people fly across the ocean to hear him sing. Maybe it's a little of both. Anyway, some months ago, March, when I first got wind of it, I girded my loins and ordered Verbier Festival tickets. I wanted a Mozart Requiem ticket b/c Pape was singing that, but it was sold out, in March! Turns out Renee Fleming (probably the big draw) called in sick and a gentleman I met at the Festival said tickets weren't that hard to come by after you arrived (now they tell me). Anyway, the Requiem video is available online, for now anyway, if you missed it as I did, at the Deutsche Grammaphon website. DG Site Link

The concert I was able to buy a ticket for was the combined Chanticleer/Pape concert on Tuesday night. Chanticleer is the San Francisco based mostly a capella group of male singers with extraordinary vocal skills and I've heard them before in San Francisco at Stanford Memorial Church. They were to sing with Pape the delightful and beautiful Schubert Standchen (Seranade) D920 which I downloaded from Itunes, but could find only alto voice. It's a gorgeous song. The words are downright sexy and you can find a translation here. Standchen Lyric Translation

In addition, Chanticleer was to sing some show tunes as was Pape. I've heard reviews of him singing the songs - So In Love (Porter) and If Ever I Would Leave You (Lerner-Lowe) and decided it was all worth the roughly $500 a song it would cost me to hear them lol. The Schubert was letter perfect, as was virtually everything I heard at Verbier. The quality and star power there, considering it takes 2 planes, 2 trains, and a Swiss Postal Bus to get there, are remarkable. The only thing wrong with the Schubert was it was way too short. In fact, when Pape got to the last page of his music, he closed his portfolio as if to say, is that all there is, can't we sing some more? For the Schubert, they were accompanied on piano by Elena Bashkirova. Next Pape sang the Porter. His 'accompaniment' was a capella Chanticleer, who had dreamed up an arrangement of jazzy, polyphonic pyrotechnics which was musically extraordinary, but I wanted Pape to stand at the end of the stage and sing that simple but beautiful song to ME. As it turned out, everyone was so involved in the intricate arrangement, Pape sounded a little like he was singing the lyric phonetically (English with a pretty good German accent) and at one point early in the song, I felt like he lost the melody for a few bars and was singing one of the other parts, but maybe it was intentional. The next song, the Lerner-Lowe, went a little more smoothly, which is to say perfectly, but I still had the feeling that everyone was so wrapped up in the musicality of the song that Pape was not able to stand and deliver dramatically, which to me is what sets him apart from the 'average bear.' He did appear to be enjoying himself and came back for the many curtain calls, but, alas there was no encore, by Pape anyway (Chanticleer sang at least three) which considering what I went through to get there, was disappointing.

In addition to Chanticleer and Pape, the program that evening included a Mozart clarinet quintette performed by Michael Collins, Renaud Capucon, Alexandra Soumm, and Lars Anders Tomter. I have never heard the piece before so can't compare, but cannot imagine it being played more exquisitely.

The evening before I heard the Orf Carmina Burana performed for the first time live. It was done with piano and percussion. It was well done of course, but the percussionists were sometimes outdone by the percussionist of all, Mother Nature, with a fierce thunderstorm. I think it added to the drama. That program also included a Bartok Sonata Sz. 110. I think Bartok is a lot more fun to play than listen to, but that's one laywoman's opinion.

The audiences at Verbier were interesting. From all over the world. All ages. All musicians themselves or virtuoso music appreciaters like me. Before each concert I attended there was a free lecture by a gentleman I did not know. He was very knowledgeable and very entertaining. The free lectures were given in the tent known as Cafe Mozart which had a breathtaking view of the Alps. I sat next to an interesting Parisian woman for the Chanticleer/Pape concert. She began our conversation in French, which I do not speak, and she immediately switched to American English without missing a beat. We were about the same age, and she was following HER artist, a pianist, to Verbier.