Classical at a Literal Crossroads

How did an outdoor music festival come to be established at one of the Upper West Side’s busiest intersections? Contrary to what you might think, there is a logical explanation. And it involves more than just the presence of a statue of Giuseppe Verdi on a half-acre tract north of 72nd Street between Amsterdam and Broadway.The triggering event was the opening a few years ago of the new 72nd Street subway station, as an organizer of the ambitiously named Verdi Square Festival of the Arts, George Litton, explained to the audience on Sunday afternoon, prior to the first of three concerts by the festival this year. A nearby resident, Lauri Grossman, he said, observed from her apartment the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which featured an opera singer. “Why not have music here on a regular basis?” she wondered.In a burst of community spirit, and with help from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, corporate and individual donors, and Manhattan’s music conservatories, the Verdi Square Festival of the Arts, now in its third season, came into being. Sunday’s concert brought to Verdi Square three accomplished young singers from the Mannes College, the New School for Music, for a brief program of arias and duets from 19th-century operas.Korean baritone Young Joo An led things off with a robust performance of the aria “Il balen del suo sorriso” from “Il Trovatore,” the only Verdi excerpt of the afternoon. His voice is a commanding one but, perhaps thinking he had to push it to be heard — given the surroundings, you can hardly blame him — he sang with unremitting loudness, thereby depriving the aria of its reflective, almost Schubertian quality, a tender moment for the opera’s villain.The amplification system proved plenty strong, and the female participants judged it better. The Israeli mezzo-soprano Maya Lahyani contributed an account of the “Séguedille” from Bizet’s “Carmen” that was alluringly voiced and not without sexual innuendo. With Mr. An, she sang the duet “Quando le soglie paterne varcai” from Donizetti’s “La Favorita,” with its gorgeous yet dramatically charged melodies with which the king of Spain assures Leonora, his “favorite,” of his love, while making no promise of marriage.Canadian soprano Emily Duncan-Brown gave a charmingly coquettish account of Norina’s entrance aria from Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale,” “Quel guardo il cavaliere,” which begins with apparently heartfelt emotion as Norina relates the story of a lovesick knight, only to shrug it off laughingly with a description of her own feminine wiles. Ms. Duncan-Brown’s sparkling performance did well by both facets of the aria.Ms. Brown and Ms. Lahyani brought the program to a close with another classic duet from a bel canto opera, “L’aura che intorno spiri” from Rossini’s “Tancredi.” You don’t need to know much about the story to appreciate this love duet. After a spirited preliminary section in which the lovers express their excitement at being reunited, they sing together in mellifluous thirds and sixths, both in the beguiling slow section and in the lively cabaletta. It was all well done here, with the voices of the two singers blending very appealingly in a performance of precision and energy. Dan Franklin Smith supplied fluent accompaniments from an electronic keyboard.The program lasted only 40 minutes, but perhaps that helped keep it a community event — you might think twice about jumping a crosstown bus for it. As it was, about 400 people showed up and were nicely accommodated in rows of plastic chairs. Given the sound system, the passing traffic proved not to be particularly obstreperous until a gaggle of motorcyclists roared down Broadway, an event that the organizers could not have counted on. The first Verdi Square Festival two years ago coincided with the 100th anniversary of the unveiling of the Verdi statue, one of several monuments to prominent Italians erected as a result of efforts by one Carlo Barsotti, editor of an Italian newspaper in New York. He probably never dreamed that Verdi Square would someday become a performance venue. But Verdi Square was much smaller in those days. Only with the building of the new subway station were the northbound lanes of Broadway closed, thereby resulting in a considerable expansion of the Square and, hence, space for an audience.The Verdi Square Festival for the Arts continues next Sunday, September 14, with a program of songs by George and Ira Gershwin, brothers who lived in adjoining penthouses near Verdi Square, and concludes on September 21 with the Mannes Klezmer ensemble.

Classical at a Literal Crossroads

Classical at a Literal Crossroads

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