What soprano Lisa Delan brought to Festival Napa Valley this year was termed a classical cabaret and not the song recital format in which she’s been featured in past summers. It was a welcome discovery for all.
In the middle of a cloudless Tuesday, July 14, the elegant stone-walled auditorium of the Jarvis Conservatory in the city of Napa, fitted out with theatrical lighting by Jesse Petrick and superb sound design by Jake Cruz, provided the perfect venue for a variety of vocals and sentiments featuring nine performers.
The themed changeups of romance and introspection ranged from longing and regret to comedy and celebration, accompanied by pianist Kevin Korth, a master of the expressive possibilities of his instrument. He opened the program with the first of many gems from William Bolcom, one of the best at applying classical composition to cabaret entertainment. “Lady Luck” had Korth singing the first line to Delan as a question with Delan answering and carrying on from there. They were purposefully interrupted by the entrance from the audience of sonorous baritone Lester Lynch, singing Bolcom’s “Song of Black Max.”
Soprano Alexandra Armantrading, seated with Delan at an onstage café table, watched Lynch, then started Benjamin Britten’s “Funeral Blues,” sotto voce. Then she rose and strode across the stage, amping up her delivery.
A pair of songs by bass Matt Boehler, who has trained as an actor, opera singer, and composer, reinforced the cabaret’s dramaturgy. His rendition of Bolcom’s “George” had the audience chuckling until the tragic ending, and his take on the lovely A.E. Stallings poem “Another Lullaby for Insomniacs” evoked the song’s tristesse.
In a trilogy of songs, Delan displayed her trademark clarity and ingenuous accessibility, whether bemoaning an ex-lover “who wanted to tell me that I wasn’t doing too well” in Bolcom’s cabaret adaption of poet Arnold Weinstein’s “At the Last Lousy Moments of Love” or warbling prettily in Gordon Getty’s perky setting of Emily Dickinson’s “I taste a liquor never brewed.”
With the appearance of Bruce Rameker and Leslie Katter, the afternoon began to feel more and more like a joyous cast party for the recent film of Getty’s opera Plump Jack, which had a cast-and-crew invitation-only screening in St. Helena on the previous day. Katter, Rameker, Boehler, and Lynch all were cast in the ambitiously impressive film, for which Delan served as executive producer and Armantrading as co-producer.
Rameker, gifted as a countertenor as well as a baritone, performed the S&M-ish comic tango “Damaged,” by Richard Pearson Thomas, singing both male and female parts, as he usually does, reversing his dance positions to hilarious effect. Katter’s bright insouciant soprano in Jake Heggie’s “Snake” would be perfect for a Broadway musical.
Delan returned to make ample use of the chaise lounge at stage right in Bolcom’s “Toothbrush Time,” a saucy statement about one night stands, followed by the same composer’s sweet-sad “Waitin’” charmingly accompanied by Korth. These songs evoked the response of “It doesn’t matter,” composed by Richard Pearson Thomas and delivered by Rameker in another Broadway-bound rendition.
Among the pieces in the latter part of the program, Armantrading’s take on Kurt Weill’s “Youkali” was a tear-jerking standout, the singer magically conveying both the dream and the imminence of disillusion. Korth provided both a new English translation of the original French and a walk-on part for esteemed violinist René Mandel. Delan was joined by veteran Bay Area clarinetist David Barnett in Heggie’s “unlocked,” a setting (but not his first) of a poem by Delan.
The innovative and often surprising show got a fine finish with a pair of Bolcom creations, “Amor” and “Blue,” gifted to the delighted audience by the entire ensemble in vocal arrangements by Boehler. “There’s so much crossover in our musical community,” Delan commented afterward, and she’d proved herself right.
