Guillermo Figueroa directed the largest bicentenary celebration in the United States of the work of Hector Berlioz back in 2003 when he was director of the New Mexico Symphony.
Saturday night, he brought his regard for his favorite composer to a concert by his current charges, the Lynn Philharmonia Orchestra, which he led in an all-French program at the Wold Center for the Performing Arts featuring two works by Berlioz and one each by Saint-Saëns and Ravel.
Mezzo-soprano Rebecca Robinson was the soloist for the song cycle Les Nuits d’Été, which Berlioz didn’t intend as a real cycle, i.e., to be performed all at once, but which has always been considered an exquisite example of the art song genre (and as Figueroa pointed out, the first group of orchestral art songs in the repertory).
Robinson, the daughter of Lynn oboe professor Joe Robinson, is a fine singer with a well-rounded, pretty and youthful sound, and she had clearly done her homework in engaging with this sometimes elusive work. Even with the youth of her voice, she gave these songs a mature, sensitive traversal that was perhaps a bit too respectful. One day she will inhabit these verses and give her audiences something even deeper.
Figueroa’s tempos were somewhat on the slow side, which leads the songs to bog down. And both Robinson and Figueroa needed a little more dramatic arch in places, particularly the climax toward the end of “La Spectre de la Rose.” Similarly, both of the outer songs, the “Villanelle” and ‘L’île inconnu,” would have benefited from a livelier approach.
But it was the kind of thing that will get better over time; I would wager a guess that the Sunday afternoon performance was smoother. In general, this was a fine reading by a good mezzo and a good orchestra of a subtle, often difficult cycle. It doesn’t have the kind of direct appeal that less intimate repertoire does, as the polite applause from Saturday’s audience showed, but Figueroa and Robinson deserves credit for programming and tackling this French Romantic masterwork and pulling it off so ably.
The program opened with a rough-and-ready rendition of the “Hungarian March” from Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust. The brass section, which has greatly improved under Figueroa, sounded strong, but there were intonation problems in the winds that hung about throughout. But it’s the beefed-up string sections that have made the sound of this orchestra more formidable, and it was exciting to hear them add so much warmth and power after the light little main theme.
After intermission, the Philharmonia played the Danse Macabre (Op. 40) of Saint-Saëns, which until very recently was a pop concerts staple. Concertmaster Yordan Tenev played the solo violin parts, clad in cape and mask from the C. Dracula collection of fine menswear, as he wandered in and offstage, red spotlight following him. He played well, and so did the orchestra; again, the sound of all those strings coming in on the big waltz tune was pretty much irresistible. It’s not much of a piece spiritually, but it’s beautifully crafted and great fun, and it’s was a pleasure to hear it again.
The concert, which was Philharmonia No. 5, closed with the second suite from Maurice Ravel’s music for the ballet Daphnis et Chloé. There was no wordless chorus in this performance, which seems kind of a shame; there might have been some way to fashion one from the other music students at the conservatory. This is brilliant music, superbly orchestrated, and it demands precision to make its best effect.
Happily, that was essentially the case Saturday night, with that famous watery opening setting the scene for the colorful dance to come in secure and inviting fashion. There was some rather spectacular flute solo work in Pan’s paean to Syrinx; the soloist’s tone was plush and lovely, and she nailed each of Ravel’s cascades of notes. Figueroa kept a strong hand on things as the final dance raced to its ecstatic conclusion. At the curtain call, the orchestra players looked justifiably proud at having pulled off this very difficult showpiece.
The Lynn Philharmonia has made important progress under Figueroa, with the orchestra assessing more and more of the most challenging orchestral pieces (a good idea for the training of future symphony musicians). The next concerts, set for April 16-17, will make that point with Scheherazade and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. And like this concert, those events argue fair to mark another important milestone in the life of the Boca Raton conservatory.