Dawn Upshaw made her long-awaited return to Herbst Theatre Sunday night, and if the audience breathed a collective sigh of relief, it was entirely understandable. The great American soprano was originally scheduled to make this appearance in January, but postponed for health reasons. Sunday, she arrived looking relaxed and sounding radiant. And her program — a brilliant bouquet of short works spanning the centuries — was definitely worth the wait.
Presented by San Francisco Performances and accompanied by pianist Stephen Prutsman, Upshaw divided the program into four parts. If the works were thematically linked — love in all its permutations seemed to be the common thread — the styles and composers, from Monteverdi to Kurt Weill, represented a broad spectrum.
Upshaw, a supremely communicative artist, made each work feel like a personal favorite. Her voice, still remarkably warm and supple, manages to sound ideal in everything from Bach cantatas and Mozart operas to new works by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov. Her recital performance blended poise, pristine tone and keen musical intelligence.
Before the program, San Francisco Performances President Ruth Felt made a short announcement. The audience was about to be part of “a little experiment,” she said. For the first time at Herbst, the organization was using supertitles instead of the printed texts traditionally distributed at vocal recitals.
Then the program began, with Purcell’s “Music for a while.” As she sang of music’s power to heal, Upshaw’s voice was touching and beautifully fragile. Prutsman was a sensitive partner, supplying lithe accompaniment as the soprano moved on to a fresh, expressive reading of Schubert’s “Im Fruhling.”
As the set continued, Upshaw conjured a keen sense of love’s enchantment – in the vivid word painting of Fauré’s “L’aube blanche,” the heady rush of Dowland’s “Come again,” the raptures of Robert Schumann’s “Die Lotosblume” and Berg’s “Im Zimmer.” She employed subtly darker shadings — and softly phrased French — in Debussy’s “Le Chevelure” and Messiaen’s “Le Collier,” bringing the first half to an enveloping close.
In the second set, the focus shifted to love’s more obsessive extremes. Upshaw began with Mozart’s “Als Luise die Briefe,” summoning the unquenchable grief of a woman standing before a fire, consigning her lover’s letters to the flames. She delved into the lush Romanticism of Rachmaninoff’s “To Her,” and, in Wolf’s “Die Bekehrte,” sang hauntingly over Prutsman’s gently rocking piano part. The delicacy of Dowland’s “Weep you no more, sad fountains” and Haydn’s “She never told her love” yielded to the manic fervor of Schubert’s “Rastlose Liebe.”
After intermission, Upshaw launched the third set with Monteverdi’s “Oblivion soave,” with her voice acquiring an even weightier, honeyed sound; Ruth Crawford Seeger’s “White Moon” benefited from the singer’s velvety tone and Prutsman’s crystalline articulation. The recital hit a high with Korngold’s “Mond, so gehst du wieder auf,” a gorgeous setting unfortunately interrupted by a ringing cell phone (will they never learn?) Upshaw, unruffled, continued with Warlock’s “Sleep,” and an excerpt from Golijov’s “Three Songs.”
Upshaw is so committed to the music at hand, and displays such facility with language, her transitions remained seamless throughout. After the potent setting “Eddig valo” (arranged by Bartók), she returned to English for the final set. She charmed with Bolcom’s “Waitin’,” and indulged in a little witty stage business with Prutsman during Weill’s “I’m a Stranger Here, Myself.” For her final songs, Upshaw turned to American standards — “What’ll I Do” and “The Love I Long For” — and the results were all the more touching for her restraint.
Finally, about the supertitles: positioned over center stage, they were unobtrusive and easy to read. They certainly cut down on the noise, a persistent problem in recitals, of audience members turning pages to read the texts (if only something could be done about those cell phones.) In her introduction, Felt encouraged those in attendance to send her their reactions; as always, SFCV welcomes comments on the experience as well.