On February 15, Artistic Director Steven Blier and the New York Festival of Song’s guests devoted their program at Merkin Hall to the torrid tangos, lush love songs, and more from Argentina. The fascinating evening was billed as “Buenos Aires, Then and Now.” Joining Blier at the Steinways was Shawn Chang; the excellent singers were sopranos Raquel Gonzáles and Nicoletta Berry and bass-baritone Federico De Michelis; and completing the company was percussionist Jainardo Batista.
Blier and Chang began the performance with Astor Piazzolla’s propulsive “Michelangelo 70,” full of passion and aggression, as arranged by Pablo Ziegler. De Michelis lent his dark, polished instrument to Piazzolla’s vibrant setting of Jorge Luis Borges’ “Alguien le dice al tango,” an address to the dance and all the emotions it inspires. The next songs took us away from the capital to the likes of Santa Fe and Jujuy. In Carlos Guastavino’s rocking setting of Guiche Aizenberg’s “Noches de Santa Fe, canción del litoral,” De Michelis gently evoked the coast and the river, and in Carlos López Buchardo’s “Jujeña,” with text by Victoriano Montes, González brought dulcet tone to the images of flowers, birds, and the land. She then proceeded to a delicate account of Buchardo’s lullaby “El niño pequeñito,” with words by Ida Réboli, and vividly limned the colors, flavors, and fragrances that heal in the composer’s “Frescas sombras de sauce,” to an anonymous poem.
Guastavino and poet Alma García’s “Abismo de sed,” was at once lilting and impassioned, as sung by De Michelis. Berry lavished her smooth lyric coloratura voice on two of Esteban Benzecry’s songs from his “Ciclo de canciónes,” the lullaby “La noche,” with text by Gabriela Mistral, and Quechua chant “Altar de la existencia,” revering plants and waters, replete with florid figures, and taking the singer up into the vicinity of high F-sharp and G.
González gave us Alberto Ginastera’s beautiful and haunting “Canción al árbol del olvido,” to poetry by Francisco Silva y Valdés, which predates the composer’s operas, “Don Rodrigo,” “Bomarzo,” and “Beatrix Cenci,” all given by New York City Opera, with their craggy musical line. In contrast came the soprano’s performance of Julio Perceval’s bustling malambo, “La madrugada,” with its shifting rhythms, for an all-male line dance, which Blier described as like something out of “Brokeback Mountain.” Next were two understated extracts from Ezequiel Viñao’s “Sonetas de Amor,” the instrumental “Color de marfil” and the Pablo Neruda setting, “El fuego es tu reino,” sung by De Michelis with Blier, Chang and, on drums, Batista.
González’s mournful “Alfonsina y el mar,” by composer Ariel Ramirez and poet Félix Luna, quietly remembered poet Alfonsina Storni and her suicide by walking into the sea when her cancer became unbearable. In Piazzolla and Eladia Blázquez’s “Siempre se vuelve a Buenos Aires,” De Michelis lyrically described the eponymous city of one’s dreams. The pianists sat out Ramirez and Amando Tejada Gómez’s nostalgic “Allá lejos y hace tiempo,” with De Michelis accompanying himself and González. The three singers and two pianists collaborated on the finale, Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Le Pera’s “Mi Buenos Aires Querido,” a romantic paean to the capital. The encore was Blier and Chang’s “Libertango,” of Piazzolla, reflecting his move from classical tango to tango nuevo.
NYFOS’ March 15 program at Merkin, “Love Songs in 176 Keys: 4 Hands, 4 Voices, 4 Countries” features love songs from Germany, Spain, France, and the United States, performed by Caramoor’s 2022 Rising Stars soprano Meredith Wolhgemuth, mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, tenor César Andrés Parreño, baritone Seonho Yu, and pianist Francesco Barfoed, with Blier and pianist Bénédicte Jourdois. Visit www.nyfos.org for further information.