RECITAL | MERKIN CONCERT HALL (2016)
The Kaufman Center (New York, NY)
Steven Jude Tietjen, Opera News
“Here's a little treat for you," soprano Julia Bullock announced to the audience before launching into a spirited rendition of Henry Cowell’s brief and humorous “Because the Cat.” The song, appearing in middle of the second portion of Bullock’s April 5 recital at Merkin Concert Hall, was a spur-of-the-moment addition to a program of mostly twentieth-century art song. It was a fleeting yet memorable moment that perfectly summarized both the spontaneity and generosity of Ms. Bullock’s artistry.
Bullock is a singer of seemingly limitless imagination when it comes to interpretation and repertoire. The recital opened with Cowell’s “How Old Is Song,” a haunting piece in which the pianist, Renate Rohlfing, plucked and strummed the piano’s strings. There was something Orpheus-like about this unorthodox beginning to a song recital with Bullock and Rohlfing leading us into the world of sound and poetry they had prepared for us.
This was followed by more or less familiar recital fare: an energetic and sensuous reading of Ravel’s Cinq melodies populaires grecques and lieder by Stenhammar and Grieg. But even Grieg’s “En svane,” a perennial favorite of recitalists, sounded fresh and achingly touching in Bullock’s hands. She did not shy away from addressing the audience between songs, and here she told the story of how Henrik Ibsen wrote the poem after a friend confessed her love for him on her deathbed. It was a simple, heartbreaking story that charged Bullock’s nuanced and indelible performance of the short lied.
Bullock displayed her fearless theatricality in songs by Kurt Weill. She was confrontational and sharp-edged in Jenny’s “Denn wie man sich bettet” from Der Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and weary in “Wie lange noch,” her voice thrust into its full operatic power in the climaxes of the songs. In the riddle/ballad “The Princess of Pure Delight” from Weill’s 1941 musical Lady in the Dark, Bullock flamboyantly portrayed the various fairy tale characters.
The second half of the recital opened with John Cage’s avant-garde vocalise for voice and piano “She is Asleep,” in which Bullock hypnotized the audience with her bewitching singing of the wordless melody floating and twisting over the insistent rhythm tapped on the keyboard lid by Rohlfing.
This was followed by an exquisite set of three songs, one each by Cowell, Paul Hindemith and Samuel Barber, loosely tied together through flower imagery. Bullock brought out the melancholy in Barber’s “The Daisies” and turned the short, pretty song into a sad remembrance of happier, simpler times.
The remaining repertoire on the recital included William Grant Still’s setting of the Langston Hughes’ poem “Breath of a Rose.” Bullock’s performance of this expansive, blues-tinged song was addictive. Her rich middle voice luxuriated in the long, almost Bellini-like melody with its languid leaps and dips. The two spirituals that ended the recital—Hall Johnson’s arrangement of “City Called Heaven” and Harry T. Burleigh’s arrangement of “Deep River”—were profoundly personal proclamations of belief. There was one encore, Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” which Bullock sang with the cocked-eyebrow intensity of Nina Simone.
The Kaufman Center (New York, NY)
Steven Jude Tietjen, Opera News
“Here's a little treat for you," soprano Julia Bullock announced to the audience before launching into a spirited rendition of Henry Cowell’s brief and humorous “Because the Cat.” The song, appearing in middle of the second portion of Bullock’s April 5 recital at Merkin Concert Hall, was a spur-of-the-moment addition to a program of mostly twentieth-century art song. It was a fleeting yet memorable moment that perfectly summarized both the spontaneity and generosity of Ms. Bullock’s artistry.
Bullock is a singer of seemingly limitless imagination when it comes to interpretation and repertoire. The recital opened with Cowell’s “How Old Is Song,” a haunting piece in which the pianist, Renate Rohlfing, plucked and strummed the piano’s strings. There was something Orpheus-like about this unorthodox beginning to a song recital with Bullock and Rohlfing leading us into the world of sound and poetry they had prepared for us.
This was followed by more or less familiar recital fare: an energetic and sensuous reading of Ravel’s Cinq melodies populaires grecques and lieder by Stenhammar and Grieg. But even Grieg’s “En svane,” a perennial favorite of recitalists, sounded fresh and achingly touching in Bullock’s hands. She did not shy away from addressing the audience between songs, and here she told the story of how Henrik Ibsen wrote the poem after a friend confessed her love for him on her deathbed. It was a simple, heartbreaking story that charged Bullock’s nuanced and indelible performance of the short lied.
Bullock displayed her fearless theatricality in songs by Kurt Weill. She was confrontational and sharp-edged in Jenny’s “Denn wie man sich bettet” from Der Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and weary in “Wie lange noch,” her voice thrust into its full operatic power in the climaxes of the songs. In the riddle/ballad “The Princess of Pure Delight” from Weill’s 1941 musical Lady in the Dark, Bullock flamboyantly portrayed the various fairy tale characters.
The second half of the recital opened with John Cage’s avant-garde vocalise for voice and piano “She is Asleep,” in which Bullock hypnotized the audience with her bewitching singing of the wordless melody floating and twisting over the insistent rhythm tapped on the keyboard lid by Rohlfing.
This was followed by an exquisite set of three songs, one each by Cowell, Paul Hindemith and Samuel Barber, loosely tied together through flower imagery. Bullock brought out the melancholy in Barber’s “The Daisies” and turned the short, pretty song into a sad remembrance of happier, simpler times.
The remaining repertoire on the recital included William Grant Still’s setting of the Langston Hughes’ poem “Breath of a Rose.” Bullock’s performance of this expansive, blues-tinged song was addictive. Her rich middle voice luxuriated in the long, almost Bellini-like melody with its languid leaps and dips. The two spirituals that ended the recital—Hall Johnson’s arrangement of “City Called Heaven” and Harry T. Burleigh’s arrangement of “Deep River”—were profoundly personal proclamations of belief. There was one encore, Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” which Bullock sang with the cocked-eyebrow intensity of Nina Simone.