Thomas Meglioranza, baritone

Lanaudière

I fly north tomorrow for a Schubert/Schumann/Wolf recital on Thursday at the Lanaudière Festival.  I also look forward to eating a Montreal bagel (pictured on the left, next to its pudgy Upper West Side counterpart).

Tanglewood

I was up in Tanglewood this past weekend singing John Harbison's new Symphony No. 5 with the Boston Symphony.  The 25 minute long baritone solo that begins the piece (which is about 35 minutes long) is a setting of Czeslaw Milosz's poem, Orpheus and Eurydice, and might longest continuous stretch of baritone singing in the repertoire--longer than any song or baritone aria I can think of.

Several people asked me afterwards if it was a hard piece to learn, and I didn't have a short answer to give.  As far as pitches, rhythms and words are concerned, I just needed to sit down and learn them (in much the way that I've described in another post, though I wouldn't call this piece atonal), and it of course took more time than usual because it's a very long song.  But once you know it, you know it, and the piece is so gratifying and beautiful and well crafted for the voice that in performance that stuff feels easy despite all the work it took to get there.

Figuring out how to deliver the poem was a challenge.  Since the character of Orpheus appears so often in classical music, I did not immediately understand that in this particular version, the baritone is actually not Orpheus but Milosz himself, who, through the myth, describes the experience of losing his wife. Once I stopped thinking of myself as Orpheus and instead tried to find the poet's own voice--quirky, human, but still lyrical--the piece suddenly had an arc.  I could focus on simply telling the story without the burden of trying to be the Greatest Singer in the World in tragic mode from beginning to end. I could let it build gradually, with moments of brightness and humor here and there, saving the anguish for the wrenching climax of the poem, when the poet's raw grief spills out through Orpheus ("How will I live without you, my consoling one?").

Some singers like to hold their music, others like to use a music stand.  I go back and forth.  If it's something I've performed a lot (like Messiah or one of the passions), I'll hold the music. But if the piece is a recent addition to my repertoire, I often find that putting the score on a stand helps me stay loose and avoid getting the dreaded "folder shoulder".  For this piece, I had always planned to hold the music, but changed my mind after the first orchestra rehearsal.  Concerned that this late change might result in my clutching the music stand in performance like the steering wheel of a giant out of control bus, I borrowed a stand from my dressing room at the shed and spent the next several days in my hotel room working with it.

Australia

Back from Australia, where on various concerts over the past two weeks I sang Ravel's Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (one of the first pieces I ever learned), some very early Brahms songs, and a program of music and narration (the latter by Jessica Duchen) that explored the life of singer/composer Pauline Viardot, who previously was known to me only as the composer of An Hour of Study, a book of tuneful vocalises which I sometimes use as a warmup. On this program, besides some very beautiful Viardot songs, I sang the chamber version of Fauré's La bonne chanson (for piano, string quartet and double bass), which was extremely gratifying, though I sometimes felt bad for the double bassist, whose part seemed to consist of long stretches of counting, and then maybe three or four plucked notes per song.

I also sang Cathy Berberian's Stripsody on an informal morning concert at the local Masonic Temple whose green room boasted some nice brownies, hot tea, fresh fruit, and a human skull.  The Berberian is a reliable crowd-pleaser, but this crowd responded with an enthusiasm that surprised me.  Afterwards, of the dozen or so audience members I met, eight of them told me that they either had known Berberian personally, had picked her up from the airport on one of her Australian tours, or had heard her in an unforgettable concert.

down under

the Wright stuff

I'm flying to Australia tonight, glad that I had the time yesterday to make a little food to take on the plane: a tart of dandelions, olives, feta and tomato, which I will supplement with some prunes and cashews.  This food is designed to last me all the way to Townsville, but if past experience is any predictor, there is a good chance I will eat it all within an hour after leaving JFK.

Speaking of plane comfort, I hereby endorse Shure earphones, which have been helping me stay sane on some recent long flights. They have a basically very good sound, but much more importantly, they block out exterior noise better than any ear- or headphones I've ever used, making it possible to listen to music (even Lieder) on an airplane or a subway train without having to crank the volume up to painful levels.  Notice the soft foam tips that go into the ear.  This is the same material that foam earplugs are made out of.  As with the earplugs, you squeeze the tips into a slender shape just before you put them in your ears.  Once in, they expand and form a perfect and comfortable seal.  (On many other earphones, this part is made out of thin silicone, which isn't effective.)

By the way, I have tried those ubiquitously advertised headphones with noise cancellation technology, and I always end up returning them.  To my ears they seem 'cancel' noise by replacing it with a very audible high-pitched squeal that gives me a headache.  And all the models I've tried get uncomfortably warm.

wallpaper

The beautiful wallpaper in the Gerald Moore room of Wigmore Hall.

Black Bearded Bible Man

Greetings from bright and sunny London, where I'm hoping my jet lag will be under control in time for next week's concert at the Wigmore.  Just a quick note today: the reason why I was in Taipei last week (and will be there for most of this coming fall) has been officially announced. (thx, Patty).

Taipei is truly wonderous place to eat.  If I'm not careful, they may need to change the title of the opera to Black Bearded Big Bellied Bible Man. Below is one of my favorite Taiwanese 'small eats': a steamed bun filled with fatty pork, cilantro (a little stemmy here), pickled vegetables, and ground peanuts.  At the now-closed Laifoods in Flushing, one would order this by asking for a "Taiwanese Hamburger".  A very good version is available at Momofuku in Manhattan.

And here are some ridiculously flaky pastries, one filled with black sesame, the other with pickled vegetables (radish?). Impossible to eat without getting flakes everywhere.

Wigmore

I'll be in London next week for an all-American program, singing two extraordinarily beautiful and moving song cycles:  Aaron Jay Kernis' Brilliant Sky, Infinite Sky, for baritone, piano, percussion and violin, and Ned Rorem's Aftermath, for baritone, piano, violin and 'cello.

It's on June 22 at 7:30pm at the Wigmore Hall.

Here's ticket info.

Jet Lag

Greetings from Taiwan.  I was excited to read an article a couple weeks ago about a possibly effective treatment for jet-lag.  Harvard Medical School scientists discovered that if mice are starved for a little while, and then fed at a time of day when they are usually asleep, their biological clocks will instantly reset so that they will be wide awake and ready to eat 24 hours later.  The scientists theorize that humans might react the same way and thus may be able to quickly overcome jet-lag with a bit of strategic meal-scheduling.  They propose a 16 hour fast before a long flight, and then breaking the fast at breakfast in the new time zone.  The article ends:

While skipping meals ahead of a long flight or night shift has not been proven to work in humans, it may be worth a try.

When I got to the end of the article I was amazed that scientists would go through all this trouble to arrive at the point of announcing to the press that they might have stumbled upon a cure for jet-lag, but that they haven't yet gotten around to testing it on humans.  Couldn't they have taken this final, simple step before alerting the media?  Don't they know anybody who takes plane trips? 

Anyway, in the interest of science, I decided to fast on the 16 hour flight from JFK to Taipei last week, but about 8 hours into the trip, I became so miserably hungry that I couldn't resist the steaming bowl of congee that the China Air stewardess set in front of me.  Experiment: failed.  Sorry, fellow travelers.  The next day, though, I ate a huge lunch of noodles around noon, then slept through dinner and didn't eat again until 7am the next day.  According to the premise of the article, this should have reset my clock.  It didn't.

A few minutes after we met for the first time, my 8-year-old niece drew this portrait of me at a restaurant, looking very wide awake and ready to eat.

Meme

I've been tagged by Anne-Carolyn (who is reading a great book, by the way) for the following meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.