| Join
a Discussion on Classical Music
It was the language that
sang on Thursday night at the New York Festival of Song at the Kaye
Playhouse. Not with sublime poetic sentiment but with intoxicated
delight: bubbly and sparkling without a predictable rhyme in sight. The
recital at the Kaye Playhouse was titled "P. G.'s Other
Profession," and it was devoted to the musical theater songs of P.
G. Wodehouse.
Even the most ardent fans of Bertie Wooster, the hapless hero of
Wodehouse's Jeeves novels, might not know that his creator collaborated
with Cole Porter on the lyrics for "You're the Top." But he
did, and he wrote a whole string of musicals with Jerome Kern long
before Jeeves was a twinkle in his eye. The material in Thursday's
concert ranged from sprightly to sweet, from "You Can't Make Love
by Wireless" to the time- honored "Bill" (a song that was
cut from an earlier musical, "Oh Lady Lady," and later
transplanted into "Showboat" with a little tweaking from Oscar
Hammerstein II).
The New York Festival of Song did Wodehouse credit by putting on a jolly
good show. Laurence Maslon, the director, created a semistaged
performance with appropriate whiffs of a variety show.
And there were four fine singers, led by Hal Cazalet, Wodehouse's
great-grandson, and the soprano Sylvia McNair. Mr. Cazalet has a light,
sandy tenor voice that's perfect for this repertory: not showstopping,
but communicative and adaptable. And Ms. McNair commendably checked her
diva's tiara at the door. Better known as an opera singer, she had a
star turn here but didn't milk it. The music made no special demands on
her voice beyond asking it to be lovely, and she carried it off very
well.
She also amicably
shared the stage with another soprano, Christianne Tisdale, who
demonstrated the skill, perhaps still evident on Broadway but almost
lost in the opera house, of acting with her voice. It wasn't just a
question of register; she used a different vocal color in "Siren
Song" than in "Cleopatterer," which requires a kind of
working- girl-ese. ("A girl today don't get the scope that
Cleopatterer did.") The fourth singer was a baritone, David
Costabile, with a serviceable voice and a comic stage talent.
Accompanying the singers were Scott Kuney, who provided resonant accents
on banjo, mandolin and guitar, and Steven Blier, the series's co-
founder and the arranger of many of the evening's works, on piano.
Mr. Blier also delivered a couple of his signature monologues of
informative and sometimes moving observations, although at times there
was a faint sense that he was justifying the worthiness of this
repertory..
It needs no justification: it may be a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure
it is. The morning after, the words, even shorn of music, danced up off
the page where the song texts were printed, as if still alive.
|
