Arts & Events

Spanish Night at the San Francisco Symphony

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Tuesday June 09, 2015 - 09:59:00 AM

The San Francisco Symphony program for Thursday-Saturday, June 4-6, offered music focusing on Spain, with the orchestra under the baton of Guest Conductor Charles Dutoit. Included in the program were Manuel De Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain and two works by Maurice Ravel: the 7-minute piece Alborada del gracioso (1905), and the one-act opera L’Heure espagnole (1907). 

I attended the Friday evening concert and enjoyed the music thoroughly. However, I was dismayed to read on Saturday morning Joshua Kosman’s review of this program in the San Francisco Chronicle. To begin with, I don’t know how Kosman – or anyone – can say of a performance of Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole featuring mezzo-Soprano Isobel Leonard as Concepcion that, “It’s not easy to listen to the music for this piece, with its elaborate set pieces and ultra-dry parodies of Spanish themes, and believe that there are actual humans anywhere in the vicinity.” Isobel Leonard is perhaps the most exquisitely expressive opera singer on this planet! Aside from possessing a lustrous voice, Isobel Leonard invests every role she plays with the utmost dramatic commitment. In this concert version of L’Heure espagnole, the whole salty drama – a comic portrayal of attempted adultery – was brilliantly acted out in the facial features and body gestures of Isobel Leonard. Depending on the circumstances, Isobel Leonard’s Concepcion was in turn imperious, flirtatious, exasperated, conniving, manipulative, impatient, and always sensuous. In short, Isobel Leonard’s Concepcion was deeply human, which makes all the more inexplicable and misguided Joshua Kosman’s complaint about the lack of actual human beings in this opera . 

L’Heure espagnole takes place in a clockmaker’s shop in Toledo, and as the opera gets under way, the orchestra offers various tick-tocks, chimes, and cuckoo calls to create the ambience. As Concepcion, the bored wife of a clockmaker, Isobel Leonard imperiously orders her husband, Torquemada, sung by tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, to leave his shop and go fix the town’s public clocks. Her reasons for this, however, involve having free time to welcome her poet-lover Gonzalve, sung by tenor John Mark Ainsley. When Gonzalve shows up, he turns out to be far more of a poetaster than a lover; and Concepcion’s frustration at Gonzalve’s wimpy poeticizing is registered not only in Isobel Leonard’s vocal asides but also in her furrowed brow, pursed lips, and dismissive waves of the hand. She clearly wants to put an end to the poeticizing and get on with the lovemaking.  

However, a muleteer who needs a watch fixed happens to be in the shop, and Concepcion must connive to get him out of the way. So she cajoles the muleteer, robustly sung by baritone Jean-Luc Ballestra, to move large grandfather clocks upstairs to her bedroom. Meanwhile, she urges the poet to hide in another of the huge clocks. When a local banker appears, sung by baritone David Wilson-Johnson, and tries to put the make on Concepcion, she consigns him to another of the clocks. Suffice it to say that there is much farcical movement of the grandfather clocks upstairs and downstairs, sometimes with one man or another hiding inside. 

Ravel’s music offers vivid characterizations. Torquemada, the foolish husband, initially sings florid praise of his beautiful wife; and Jean-Paul Fouchecourt’s high tenor voice offered limpid lyricism. But when Concepcion impatiently orders her husband out of the shop, he meekly complies. As the poet Gonzalve, tenor John Mark Ainsley sang with florid lyricism pushed to exaggerated lengths. As the banker, baritone David Wilson-Johnson initially sings in a ponderous, pompous manner, accompanied by a bassoon, although a bit later he takes a more playful tack in his vain efforts to woo Concepcion. Finally, as Ramiro, the muscular muleteer, baritone Jean-Luc Ballestra starts off shyly, then becomes flattered by Concepcion’s repeated requests to carry heavy clocks, and ultimately begins to sense her growing appreciation of him and his muscular build and huge biceps. Suffice it to say that, when it comes to romance, the muleteer gets his turn. 

Strictly in a musical sense, I take issue with Kosman’s characterization of L’Heure espagnole as being comprised of “elaborate set pieces.” Ravel composed this one-act opera without the usual operatic set pieces. Instead, like Debussy’s 1902 opera Pélleas et Mélisande, Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole proceeds by the very musical declamation of the French language in recitatives, with very few set pieces until the final quintet. Conductor Charles Dutoit, who has built a reputation for his expertise in the French repertoire, led the orchestra and singers in brisk fashion. All told, I found this performance of L’Heure espagnole, and especially the vocal and dramatic artistry of Isobel Leonard, extremely witty and eminently enjoyable. 

Also on the program for this concert was Ravel’s brief Alborada del gracioso. 

An alborada is a song sung at dawn, usually at the parting of two lovers. In this orchestral song by Ravel, the gracioso is a bit of a jester; and his song, when it comes, is played by a bassoon. As lovely as this song is, especially as played by bassoonist Stephen Paulson, there is too much bombastic music surrounding it for my taste. (Shades of Ravel’s Bolero!) Here too, I take issue with Joshua Kosman when he refers to this 7-minute piece as the highlight of the program.  

Likewise, I couldn’t disagree more strongly with Kosman when he dismisses Manuel De Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain as “a flabby series of impressionistic tone paintings for piano and orchestra,” and goes on to fault pianist Javier Perianes for having “labored mightily – perhaps a little strenuously – to make a case for the music, without much success.” I found De Falla’s evocation of Spanish gardens quite enchanting. When De Falla went to Paris 1907, the first French composer he met was his idol Maurice Ravel. De Falla soon joined Ravel in the group known as “Les Apaches” (“The Apaches”), a group of musicians, poets, and critics who championed the new impressionism in music. De Falla quickly composed his Nights in the Gardens of Spain in which there are three movements -- the first entitled “Generalife,” evoking the famous gardens surrounding Granada’s Alhambra; the second “Danza lejaña” (“Distant Dance”); and the third entitled “In the Gardens of the Sierra de Córdoba.” Throughout this 23-minute work, De Falla makes subtle use of guitar-like music played by violins, as well as gypsy and flamenco rhythms. The piano offers obligatato accompaniment and blends in subtly as an additional orchestral texture; a feature brought out successfully by Spanish pianist Javier Perianes.