On January 15, at the Juilliard School, the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), headed by Steven Blier, assisted by an octet of outstanding young singers—sopranos Chea Young Kang and Jaylyn Simmons, mezzo-soprano Olivia Cosio, tenors Ian Matthew Castro, César Andrés Parreño, and Santiago Pizarro, and baritones Aaron Keeney and Kyle Miller—and percussionist Leonardo Granados and assistant pianist Shawn Chang—opened a fascinating world for us of Cuban classical, semi-classical, art, and popular songs, many of them protest songs in disguise, written when their composers were in Paris, studying and escaping a harsh regime at home a century or so ago. The performance was staged by Mary Birnbaum and choreographed by Adam Cates.
The program, a joint venture with Juilliard, entitled “Cubans in Paris,” began with one of the oldest songs performed here, “La bella cubana,” by José White, a contemporary of Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Gioachino Rossini, and teacher of George Enescu. This tenor-baritone duet, sung by Parreño and Miller, proved as lyrical and intoxicating as “Au fond du temple saint,” from Georges Bizet’s “Les Pêcheurs de perles,” as did Sindo Garay’s “Guarina,” sung by Castro and Keeney later in the performance, and also dating from the early 1900s. Laments for a lost African homeland were composer Eliso Grenet and poet Aurelio G. Riancho’s “Lamento esclavo,” read in English by Simmons before she performed the song, with its catchy rhythm, complete with dance steps, and Ernesto Lecuona’s “Canción Karabali,” with Pizarro singing and joining in on percussion and bringing the song remembering the people of Carabal, brought to Cuba and enslaved, to a grand operatic ending. A number of additional songs by gay composer Lecuona would follow.
Romance was, inevitably, a theme of Cuban zarzuela. Parreño and Cosio reveled in Luis Casas Romero’s song-with-dance “¡Si llego a besarte!” (if I get to kiss you), bouncy and engaging. Keeney delivered an impassioned romanza, “Mi vida es cantar,” by Grenet and Riancho, from “La virgin morena.” Simmons, as Rosa, and Castro, as Juan, gave us “Yo viví soñando en un cuartico,” an affectionate duet between the eponymous lady of the evening and the young man who loves her, from Lecuona and Gustavo Sánchez Galaraga’s “Rosa la China.”
Kang gave her all in Matilde’s verismo aria “Perdida para siempre la esperanza,” from José Mauri and Tomás Julia’s “La esclava,” with Blier at the Steinway. We got to compare settings of a Nicolas Guillén poem, with Pizarro and Miller lyrically teasing the young man who cannot connect with American women because his English amounts to “strike … one-two-three,” in Alejandro García Caturla’s lyrical “Bito Manué,” and Parreño doing the same, in Grenet’s “Tú no sabe inglé,” to a cha-cha rhythm.
Religious rituals brought from Africa to Cuba were concerns of Caturla and Alejo Carpentier’s “Mari-Sabel,” which contrasts the rich white Cubans, slumbering inside, with the Afro-Cubans, seizing life outside, with Cosio, with Chang, responsible for the earthy chant, in which a ceremonial robe plays a prominent part, and of their lively “Juego santo,” with the full company limning the parade, the dancing, the animal sacrifices, and the feasting, to drive out “el diablo.”
Selections from composer Moisés Simons and lyricist Henri Duvernois’ operetta “Toi c’est moi,” about the “bromance” (Blier’s word) of Pat (Pizarro) and Bob (Miller) kicked off the second half of the evening, beginning with the spirited music hall-style title song, detailing their strong ties to and identification with each other. We met the women in their lives, with Cosio as Bob’s amour, giving us a winning nightclub number, “C’est ça la vie,” a twist on the “Carmen” story, in which Carmen kills the faithless toreador Escamillo, and Kang as Pat’s amie, joining him in the dulcet “Duo du rossignol.” And finally, in “Entre copains,” the two friends had a full-blown, hissing and spitting and sparring falling out.
Simmons introduced herself as Simons’ “Palmira,” with the men of the company joining her in the upbeat and seductive song and the other women joining in the dancing. Parreño sweetly realized the great beauty “Flor de Yumuri,” by Jorge Anckermann and Galarraga, which could pass for a Neapolitan song. Castro and Keeney serenaded their loves with a rhythmic “Como el arrullo de palmas,” by Lecuona. Kang lamented an unhappy life in the tragic title song, with another infectious rhythm, from Lecuona and Galarraga’s “Maria la O.” And Cosio and Miller and the rest of the company brought this fascinating journey to a close by collaborating on Simons’ “La negra quirina” (Quririna is hungry)—was it about food or seduction?
For an encore, the ensemble turned to music from another island, Puerto Rico, not so very far away from Cuba, a rousing “Cachita,” by Rafael Hernández.