Singing an Unsung American Composer

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The New York Sun

The Manhattan School of Music has performed a real service by staging Lee Hoiby’s opera “A Month in the Country.” But “a real service” is not the right way to put it; that makes the staging sound almost a duty. The Manhattan School has provided a real treat in staging the Hoiby work.


Who is Lee Hoiby? He is an unsung American composer, though he has written a lot to sing – about 100 songs, including “There Came a Wind Like a Bugle” (setting the Dickinson poem), “Always It’s Spring” (e.e. cummings), and “The Serpent” (Theodore Roethke). That is to go with several operas, the best known of which is probably “Summer and Smoke” (from the Tennessee Williams play), which Mr. Hoiby composed in 1971.


For all his prowess in vocal composition, Mr. Hoiby was trained as a pianist, studying with the legendary Egon Petri. Mr. Hoiby has done his share of piano composing, and much of this music – as with his output as a whole – can be found on CDs. The Web site www.leehoiby.com is most helpful in this respect. (And if we had had the Internet in the 1780s? Would we have seen www.wamozart.com?)


His great champion was Leontyne Price, who took care to offer some Hoiby in seemingly every recital. When she withdrew from the stage in 1998, a great Hoiby voice – among other things – was stilled. Hardly any composer has ever had a more faithful or more stellar champion.


Mr. Hoiby, born in 1926, ran into a problem: He wanted to write beautiful music – and tonal music – in an age when that sort of music was disapproved. Music took a sharp turn, hijacked by what the composer Ned Rorem called “the serial killers” (a reference to practitioners of serialism). Mr. Hoiby was derided in important quarters as an anachronism, a neo-Romantic, a – worst label of all – conservative.


What he is is a marvelous composer, who writes piece after piece of insight, freshness, and delight. Those Price recitals would include Handel, Mozart, Schubert, Debussy, Barber … and nothing would please more than the Hoiby.


He wrote “A Month in the Country” in 1964, although its original title was “Natalia Petrovna,” after the main character. The libretto is by William Ball – after the play, of course, by Turgenev. Mr. Hoiby revised his opera in 1980. Turgenev’s is a rich story, telling of an aristocratic household upset by romantic longings – this one loves him, this one loves her, and rarely do two people love each other mutually. Strangely, each of the many characters is sympathetic, despite their warring. It’s hard to take sides.


And Mr. Hoiby treats them superbly. His opera is a feast of music, and of musical characterization, and the attention never sags. He moves the story along, while illuminating it. The music is Barberesque, or Hoibyesque, if you like. We hear an American sound, an “open” sound, but Mr. Hoiby’s score is amazingly varied: now sensual, now comic, now plain, now exotic, now popular, now sophisticated. From the beginning, the music is on edge, telling you that something is afoot. This edginess is present even when things seem relatively serene. Mr. Hoiby often signals danger or trouble through atonality – some dissonance to queer the harmony.


Arias and duets arise naturally, not coming off as set-pieces. Mr. Hoiby has a lot going on, with all those characters and all that musical variety, but there is never a sense of busyness, of clutter: This composer is a master of texture, balance, and pace. When the work concludes with its soaring octet, you feel that you have had a complete – and completely satisfying – operatic experience. This is not exactly a regular occurrence.


On Wednesday night, the Manhattan School of Music did Mr. Hoiby’s work proud, in every respect. As a rule, I don’t review student performances – not conventionally – but these singers can be judged by high standards. I wish to highlight one singer in particular, the tenor Jon-Michael Ball, who portrayed Dr. Shpigelsky. He has a lovely lyric instrument, solid technique, and a fine theatrical sense. Other singers ranged from excellent to creditable; no one sagged beneath. All had obviously been well trained, well coached – well everything.


The school’s orchestra was admirably competent, as was the evening’s conductor, Steven Osgood. Ned Canty’s stage direction was utterly convincing, and Michael Schweikhardt’s set design was right-on.


So, this was a smashing evening for Lee Hoiby and the Manhattan School. When he stepped onstage to take his bow, the composer beamed, though somewhat shyly. Many nights of the week, one hears professional performances – in the grandest venues, for the steepest prices – that get nowhere near this conservatory effort. And night after night, one hears music of contemporary composers that doesn’t hold a candle to Mr. Hoiby’s. These composers are often praised as “challenging.” Sometimes they are. But a real challenge would be to write something so winning as “A Month in the Country.”


There are two performances left, one tonight and one Sunday afternoon. It would not be a bad idea to treat yourself. As for Mr. Hoiby’s future, we are informed that he has “recently completed a three-act setting of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ which has yet to be produced.” Let us hope that the Hoiby “R & J” is not unsung.


“A Month in the Country” will be performed again December 10 at 8 p.m. and December 12 at 2:30 p.m. (John C. Borden Auditorium, 601 W. 122nd Street, 212-749-2802).


The New York Sun

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