An Armenian at the Folly: Soprano sings the long line

January 26, 2008

By PAUL HORSLEY

Isabel Bayrakdarian possesses a firm, luxurious lyric soprano and sings with a crystal-clear, almost prescient sense of diction in a rainbow of languages. But what most impressed at her Harriman-Jewell Series recital Saturday at the Folly was her extraordinary capacity to spin an endless melodic line, a mellifluous flow that takes you from the beginning to the end of a thought or idea. You'd think all singers should be able to do that, but it'snot as common as you imagine.

The Lebanese-born Canadian-Armenian star of the Metropolitan Opera - and of Howard Shore's score for the film `The Two Towers'- sang in seven languages, including her native Armenian. You'll rarely hear a singer muster so much meaning from such a range of texts. Her husband, pianist-composer Serouj Kradjian, was an unusually proficient and sophisticated accompanist. Bayrakdarian's stage presence is commanding, and her technique is solid and consistent. She doesn't knock you over with diva-like star power. Instead, her poetic and spiritual currents run deep. Occasionally her rapid vibrato cloyed in the Folly's close acoustic, and I found myself yearning for a wider range of color. Yet I found myself drawn to her `long line' from the opening set of Poulenc songs (`Banalités), where she struck attitude (`Hôtel') or pleaded plaintively (`Fagnes de Wallonie') as called for. She was also vividly aware of communicating the text in the American composer Jake Heggie's `Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia,' a setof musings on facets of Shakespeare's heroine. Her `Song of the Moon' aria from Dvorák's `Rusalka' was diamond-polished rather than plush and velvety. Rossini's `Una voca poco fa' was explored for its comedy, conveyed not just with saucy gestures but by injecting humor right into the vocal line (for example, by stretching trills a tad too long).

After intermission came out in a new gown, which one striking mango-apricot, and sang five Armenian folk songs, which for me were the highlight of the evening. Most of these tunes had an ancient flavor, with a narrow voice range and a long-breathed cantilena that is unlike any folk song I've heard. One of them, `Call to the Sea,' was a patriotic song that asked somewhat defiantly: `I wonder if the day will come / When I see a flag on Mount Ararat,/ And Armenians from all over the world / Will make their way to their dear homeland.' At the song's stirring climax, Bayrakdarian's voice welled up to a luminosity we had not yet heard. She then launched into Ravel's `Five Popular Greek Melodies,' in Greek rather than in the French in which they were set. Again, soulful lines were juxtaposed with boisterousness and urgency, as in the subsequent set of Spanish Folk Songs by Fernando Obradors. Bayrakdarian's Spanish was as nimble as her French and Italian. The lush, sensuous encores were in Spanish, too: Lecuona's `Malaguena' and Montsalvatge's un-p.c. but delicious `Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito.'