Emily D’Angelo’s recital at the Park Avenue Armory on Friday offered no comic relief. Not a giggle, not a wink. Her unusual smile during the performance was wistful. The subjects she sang were most often longing, death, and tears.
Instead of letting gravity go, D’Angelo, pianist Sophia Munoz joined the Armory boardroom, doubling down. Her program was like her mezzo-soprano voice.
But lingering through so much pain is rarely this much fun. The event — D’Angelo’s first American solo appearance — gave a small audience an intimate encounter with one of the world’s most special young singers.
Still in her twenties and emerging on the international scene in the last few years, D’Angelo has a rich, mellow voice, an enveloping serenity and confidence. But with a little push on her gas, her tone flashes harshly, almost scary. Aaron Copland’s 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson —Her sound really had the amplitude of an organ.
The first half of her program borrowed a few songs from her debut solo album, Enargia, released last year, but more like two solemn Schoenberg songs following Hildegard von Bingen’s O frondens virga. At the new company, a sober introduction took place. .
But while on “Enargeia” the lush and mesmerizing instrumental arrangements turned some tracks nasty, on Friday they were more subdued and more influential with only Munoz’s gentle and delicate piano accompaniment. It has power and makes D’Angelo’s voice more direct. Sarah Kirkland-Snyder’s “Nausicaa,” stripped of its new-age guise, was a comforting prayer, and Missy Mazzoli’s two of her works smoldered without being too heavy.
There was no effect on her singing or presence. D’Angelo wore a black vest over a sleeveless top with drawstrings on her pants and a pixie on her haircut, looking a bit like Peter her buns and a bit Joan of Arc. Her hands rested on the curved edges of the piano, leaning gently on her instrument, with the casual confidence of an experienced cabaret her artist.
So it was no surprise that she had a knack for pulling up a chair and telling a story, whether it was Randy Newman’s “Wandering Boy” or Rebecca Clarke’s “The Seal Man.” , as if she’s been all over the world.She was amazing in Cecilia Livingston’s monologue “Penelope” The 2020 version of Mezzo begins with a watery quiver of piano and moves into a series of slow-burning, sometimes intense questions. What is waiting for you? “
Near the end was followed a series of nocturnes (here a true premonition of death) by Clarke, Fanny Mendelssohn and Florence Price. Before D’Angelo’s encore, an impassioned exposition of Dvořák’s Chestnut “Songs My Mother Taught Me”, she closed the program written about that folk seducer with Clara’s Schumann’s “Lorelei”. I was.
A poem by Heinrich Heine, set by Schumann, describes Lorelei’s singing as “wundersame, gewalt’ge”. So is D’Angelo.
Emily D’Angelo
It was performed at the Park Avenue Armory on Friday.