Pages

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Soprano Andrea Lauren Brown



Purposefully Peripatetic

VoxAmaDeus’ Prima Donna

Andrea Lauren Brown

In Conversation with Richard A. Shapp

A native of Wilmington, Delaware, and a great favorite with the audiences of VoxAmaDeus, coloratura soprano Andrea Lauren Brown paid a visit to Philadelphia last mid-October.  Once again she captivated her loyal fans during a thrilling performance of Mozart’s Grand Mass in c minor in the Kimmel Center with the Ama Deus Ensemble conducted by Valentin Radu. Then it was back to Europe for a whirlwind of performances. And now she returns home for what will surely prove to be her signature interpretation of Handel’s Messiah with the Ama Deus Ensemble. Then Andrea will fly off again to perform concert after concert in Europe. Such is the busy life of this renowned vocal artist.

Andrea and I caught up with each other before the Mozart Mass in c minor last October. With time being limited I asked Andrea to capsulize what she had performed since her last visit home, and what lies ahead in her busy artistic schedule.

ALB: To begin with, I am based in Bremen, Germany. Over the past several months I sang, as usual, a wide variety of concerts and operas. And I am fortunate to appear very often with some of the most famous specialists in historical performance practice in Europe. One highlight for me in 2013 was my appearing again with a famous orchestra of period instruments that, in artistic outlook, resembles VoxAmaDeus. It is called Anima Eterna (“Eternal Soul”) and its conductor is Jos van Immerseel.  Anima Eterna is dedicated to recreating mostly seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century music on historically appropriate instruments.

Last May I sang with Anima Eterna on an extensive concert tour with performances in Belgium, France and Poland. Our last stop was in the fascinating Warsaw Philharmonic Hall that has a stage that looks like a three-tiered wedding cake. I had to make an entrance over an incredibly long walk, going down all three tiers, wearing my long dress, while the audience stomped madly to a beat and with happy fervor. (They certainly have esprit in Poland!).

RAS: What did you sing with Anima Eterna??

ALB: It was a Mozart tour de force program. I sang five Mozart concert arias, which were Chi sà, chi sà  qual sia, K. 582 (1789); Per pietà, bell’ idol mio, K. 78 (1766); Bella mia fiamma, addio, K. 528 (1787); Ah, lo previdi, K. 272 (1777); and Nehmt meinen Dank, K. 383 (1782). The fabulous divas for whom these concert arias were written included Mozart’s wife, Constanze Weber (1762-1842), and Josepha Duschek (1754-1824). The soprano solo part in the Grand Mass in c minor, which I just sang with Valentin, was written for Constanze. And about the aria written for Madame Duschek, Bella mia fiamma, addio (“Light of my life, farewell”), hangs quite an amazing story! Musically it is a particularly challenging work, one written with what are called tri-tones, ungainly leaps and skips that test the singer’s musicianship and ability to sing a very awkward vocal line.

RAS notes: 
[Generally, a “concert aria” is an extended, stand-alone solo vocal composition that is very demanding both vocally and dramatically. Also, it is not from an opera or other larger composition. The concert aria in question, Bella mia fiamma, addio! (“Light of my life, farewell”), K. 528, was composed on November 3, 1787. Bella mia fiamma, addio! was written in Prague for the famed soprano and friend of Mozart, Josepha Duschek (Josefína Dušková). At that time, Mozart was composing Don Giovanni for its premiere in Prague, and he went to stay with his close Czech friends Mr. and Mrs. Duschek. By the way, Mr. Duschek was none other than the famed composer, pianist and voice teacher Franz Xaver Duschek (1731-1799); he also taught the piano to Mozart’s son Karl Thomas (1784-1858).

It was Mozart’s son who related this interesting story: One day during the visit, Josepha provided the senior Mozart with paper and pen. She then slyly locked the composer into a guest house, saying she would not let him out until he wrote, as promised, a new aria for her to the text of “Bella mia fiamma.” Mozart accepted the challenge; but, to avenge himself for this trick, he stipulated that he would destroy the written manuscript if Madame Duschek could not flawlessly sing the new aria at first sight! Thus it was that Bella mia fiamma, addio! was composed, not only with the highly challenging tri-tone melodic skips but with a very wide range and every vocal trick in Mozart’s book! Additionally, tremendous dramatic-acting demands were placed upon the singer. But since we have the music, autographed by the composer, Mrs. Dushcek obviously passed the test and sang this aria to a demanding Mozart’s satisfaction! Soon thereafter, in 1789, Madame Duschek sang this aria, along with other arias, at concerts given by Mozart in Dresden and Leipzig during a tour of Germany.  And knowing how Andrea Lauren Brown sings we can safely assume that she is a vocal descendant of the original prima donna for whom Mozart composed this aria.]


ALB: As I said, I sang five Mozart concert arias during this tour. But in Bella mia fiamma Mozart’s genius makes the ungainly tri-tone sound melodic and beautiful. Then in Solothurn at the Castle Waldegg in Switzerland I participated in an open- air, staged production of an opera by André Grétry (1741-1813) called Le Huron. Grétry was a French composer whom Mozart admired. It was under the direction of the well-known stage director Georg Rootering.

RAS: Do you mean “Huron” like Lake Huron and the Huron Indians?

ALB: Yes! Le Huron, composed in 1768, was Grétry’s first great success in Paris.  The opera was based on a play by Voltaire (1694-1778) called L’Ingénu (“The Innocent” or “The Pupil of Nature”). This 1767 play was a blistering satirical attack by Voltaire on contemporary society. I played the innocent love interest of “the Huron,” a man raised by Huron Indians but transplanted from Canada to France. You can imagine all the embarrassingly comic situations that arise as the Huron tries to make it in mid-eighteenth century France! We had a multi-level, original Shakespearean stage in the round, imported from Paris, with swings and ropes that my colleague swung from.

I also portrayed the role of Dido in the Henry Purcell (1659-1695) opera Dido and Aeneas. This was near Munich, in Schrobenhausen, for Die Festtage für Alte Musik (The Festival for Old Music), a Baroque music festival held every September.

RAS: And now you are back here for performances of Handel’s Messiah on Friday, December 6, at 7:00 p.m. in Philadelphia’s Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square; at the Nassau Christian Center of Princeton, New Jersey, on Saturday, December 7, at 7:00 p.m. and finally in Paoli’s Daylesford Abbey on Sunday, December 8, at 4:00 p.m. But when you return to Europe and your home-away-from-home in Bremen, Germany…what’s next?

ALB: Coming up will be a performance of Haydn’s (1732-1809) famed oratorio The Creation in Rottenburg am Neckar with period-music specialists. Then over the next few months I am fortunate that the rest of my upcoming concert schedule resembles the first half of the year. This will include performing repertoire I have often sung, such as the Bach Passions (Saint John and Saint Matthew), Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, Brahms’s Requiem (which I also sang in Zürich with the Tonhalle Orchester last May), and Carmina Burana by Carl Orff (1895-1982) which I sang in June for at least the seventh time. By the way, my debut with Carmina was in the glorious opera house in Verona, Italy!

In addition to various Bach concerts in which I will be singing cantatas and the Christmas Oratorio, I look forward to performing a new piece with orchestra. It is Die letzten Dinge (an oratorio known in English as “The Last Judgment” written in 1825-26) by Louis Spohr (1784-1859). Spohr was a German composer who made his career in France, but this oratorio was reputedly very popular, in its time, in Victorian England and the United States.

Also during 2014 I look forward, among other things, to singing the soprano solo part in Beethoven’s (1770-1827) Ninth Symphony on a tour that will take me to Belgium and France in June. I will also make another special recording for Naxos: all the solo cantatas for soprano composed by Johann Simon Mayr (1763-1845). [Historic Note: Mayr was a German musician whose career blossomed in Bergamo, Italy. He is credited with introducing that city to Beethoven and his music. He also was the composition teacher of the famed opera composer Gaetano Donizetti.]

RAS: Andrea, you have a substantial amount of little-known music in your repertoire.

ALB: You know, my colleagues and I are always happy to sing—with fantastic conductors and ensembles of course—the standard pieces that are frequently performed. But I am very happy to record and perform the works of lesser-known composers. For instance, for the Naxos label I have made at least five discs of rarely performed operas and oratorios. For Carus I made recordings featuring music by neglected but important contemporaries of Mozart: Simon Mayr, Grétry, Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774), Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg (1760-1802), and Justin Heinrich Knecht (1752-1817). I am proud to say that, over time, I definitely have made a little niche for myself in Europe, performing new roles that none of my contemporaries yet perform. Preparing and singing these unknown roles by overlooked composers really appeals to my musicianship and originality. For me, singing the solo in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is almost a form of relaxation!

RAS: Allow me to conclude with these words of praise concerning the critical acclaim you have received. Like Madame Duschek, who in her time was compared in outstanding critiques to the most famous divas of her day, Andrea Lauren Brown too has received many positive reviews in the press, some of which have drawn similarities, in her dramatic and visually enthusiastic performances and her ability to sing fast coloratura notes, to the talents of Cecilia Bartoli. This is high praise indeed. VoxAmaDeus audiences most certainly count themselves lucky that they are regaled so often by this "local lady" who has made such a mark in Europe. 

Thank you, Andrea.