If you like an eclectic vocal program, Monday night was your night. Julia Bullock, an American soprano, sang a recital with the pianist John Arida. Their venue was the Board of Officers Room at the Park Avenue Armory.
They began with German art songs—Schubert and Wolf. Then came two songs by Connie Converse, a singer-songwriter from the middle of the twentieth century. Fascinating, and tragic, life story. (For the relevant Wikipedia entry, go here.) Jeremy Siskind arranged the Converse songs, as he did many other songs on this program. He is very good at the job.
Soon it was Lotte Lenya time, with Bullock singing four songs by Kurt Weill. She closed the first half of her program with Rossini and Berio. She did not sing them in chronological order. She went Berio, Rossini, Berio, etc. So it had been with Schubert and Wolf: Schubert, Wolf, Wolf, and back to Schubert again. This was unusual and canny.
Note, too, that Julia Bullock did her own translation. That is, she translated the texts (non-English ones) given in our program booklet.
Singing her opening German set, Bullock was not at her best. There were problems with pitch. There was a little unwanted scooping. There were dubious stylistic choices, from both singer and pianist: awkward pauses and so on. But we are in a subjective area here, and Bullock unquestionably evinced sincerity, intelligence, heart, and other qualities that count for a lot.
When she sang her Weill numbers, she showed the soul of a musical-theater kid.
She has a warm and sparkling stage presence, Julia Bullock does. You could tell she did not want applause between her German songs. But she smiled and nodded at her applauding audience. Before the evening was through, most, I think, got the idea of when to applaud and when not to.
At some point in the first half, Bullock forgot the words to a song. She stopped and started over again. Before resuming, she said something like, “Sorry, but I’ve been up since 4:30 a.m. with a ten-month-old.”
She began the second half of her recital with a piece by John Cage: She Is Asleep, Part 2, which Cage called a “duet for voice and prepared piano.” By both Ms. Bullock and Mr. Arida, this was very well judged. It was maybe the outstanding performance on the evening.
The rest of the program had music by Lovie Austin, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, et al. Bullock often sound mezzo-y (and appropriately so). Arida made a stylish and stirring contribution to “Downhearted Blues.”
Concluding the program was “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” which Billy Taylor wrote in 1952. From the stage, Bullock described it as “like a twentieth-century spiritual.” “So true,” I thought.
A lot of us had the album that Leontyne Price made with the Rust College Choir (in Holly Springs, Miss.) in the early 1970s. We wore the grooves off it. “I Wish I Knew . . .” is one of the best tracks ever laid down (here). When I was a kid, I think I thought this was a spiritual, before learning otherwise.
Throughout the evening, Ms. Bullock talked. The recital was akin to a concert-lecture. My sense is, most people like this sort of thing. There are about eleven of us dinosaurs who don’t. I think of a radio-station slogan from my youth: “Less talk, more rock.”
Bullock’s remarks were sprinkled with social commentary: “power dynamics”; “appropriation”; “empowerment”; etc. Again, this is a matter of taste.
So is this: In the Nina Simone song “Four Women,” Bullock stopped and said, “I just fucked up a lyric, and I don’t want to fuck up anything in this song.” She started again. F-bombs aside, if a singer stopped and started again every time she dropped or fudged a lyric, we would never get through an evening.
Bullock sang one encore, returning to Schubert: “Seligkeit.”
In recent years, I have been complaining about song recitals: the fading out of them. We seem to have fewer and fewer now. Thank heaven for Julia Bullock, John Arida, the Park Avenue Armory, and all the others who are doing their part to keep this glorious and diverse literature alive.
I have said it before, I will say it again: The Board of Officers Room is an exceptionally civilized and comfortable place in which to listen to music. The chairs are first-class. By comparison, other venues make you feel like you’re sitting on bleachers at an old football field.