Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater, New York

Sunday, 3 April 2011, 5:00 pm

Matthew Polenzani, tenor
Julius Drake, piano

Franz Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin

This performance is part of the Art of the Song series

Click here to read an interview with Matthew & Julius about Die schöne Müllerin

Click the photo to hear them being interviewed and playing live on WGBH radio

What the critics say

Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 4.4.2011

A Swagger and Some Bluster for the Sake of Telling Stories

That the tenor Matthew Polenzani sang Schubert’s song cycle “Die Schöne Müllerin” so beautifully on Sunday afternoon at Alice Tully Hall was no surprise. This fine American artist, a regular at the Metropolitan Opera, most recently as Ernesto in Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” opposite Anna Netrebko, has long been admired for the refinement and expressivity of his singing.

But I was probably not alone among Mr. Polenzani’s admirers on Sunday to be struck by the intensity and operatic swagger of his singing here. The cycle, Schubert’s settings of 20 poems by Wilhelm Müller, lasted about 65 minutes in this Art of the Song recital with the excellent British pianist Julius Drake. Mr. Polenzani performed the work with complete command — and impressively clear German diction — and without a break. And from the opening songs, “Das Wandern” and “Wohin?,” in which the protagonist, a young journeyman miller, exults in the freedom of his life, picking up work here and there, following the trail of a babbling brook, Mr. Polenzani was in full-fledged storytelling mode.

In reflective phrases he sang with his trademark sweet sound and tenderness. Yet in bursts of bluster and, later, romantic despair, he let his voice ring out with unabashed operatic fervor and big top notes. He was intent, it seemed, on conveying the narrative sway and psychological complexity of this cycle.

Which is why it was a shame that Mr. Polenzani was forced to stop between songs early on when some soft, but piercing and very audible electronic sounds filled the hall. Looking rattled, Mr. Polenzani asked his audience, “Can anyone tell what that is?” Several people shouted at once, “A hearing aid.”

Indeed, it did seem to be the telltale sound of feedback from a maladjusted hearing aid. Eventually it stopped and Mr. Polenzani continued. But several times during the rest of the recital it returned, just as audible, and there was nothing for the performers and their audience to do but try to ignore it.

At times Mr. Polenzani’s most impassioned phrases seemed not just operatic, but hard-pressed and oversung, as in “Ungeduld,” when the wanderer wants to carve on every tree his avowal of love for the beautiful daughter of the mill owner. But I am reluctant to fault him, because Mr. Polenzani must have been exasperated that his performance, clearly representing great preparation and experience from an important artist, was being undermined by the electronic interference.

He and Mr. Drake have worked together often, including a splendid recital at the Rose Theater in 2007. And they were excellent partners here. Mr. Polenzani’s wistful, midrange singing in “Morgengruss” (“Morning Greeting”) was disarmingly wistful. Yet in “Eifersucht und Stolz” (“Jealousy and Pride”), when the wanderer realizes that the fickle young woman of the mill seems far more interested in his rival, a huntsman, Mr. Polenzani sang with incisive attack and ferocity.

In the final song, when the brook invites the despairing, suicidal young man to rest within its waters, Mr. Polenzani’s singing was poignantly vulnerable. The audience, which nearly packed the hall, brought the artists back again and again for bows. They offered an encore, Schubert’s dreamy “Im Abendrot,” beguilingly performed.

Howard Kissel,Huffpost Arts,7.4.2011

… Of the three melancholy, neurotic tenor roles on display the most difficult is the unnamed singer in Schubert’s “Die Schoene Mullerin,” a song cycle about a young man who falls in love with a fickle miller’s daughter. Though it is easy to perform Schubert’s two great cycles (the other being “Winterreise”)as examples of great musical beauty or individual songs, they are both monologues with a very clear personality in evidence.

In the case of “Mullerin” the singer is a young man of almost extraordinary naivete, experiencing perhaps his first ever love, crushed when his love object, never all that ardent toward him, flirts with a dashing hunter. What one, wonders, could he expect? She isn’t very worldly either, and her notions of love are far more conventional and banal than his. Only in Schubert’s hands could this ordinary misunderstanding attain such heights of beauty and sensitivity.

Similarly, it requires a performer with as rich and pure a voice and masterly a technique as tenor Matthew Polenzani to convey the full emotional and musical texture of these songs. Polenzani is a consummate artist and makes the situations entirely convincing and moving. The concert was billed as a Great Performance, and indeed it was.

He has an excellent collaborator in pianist Julius Drake. After what must be a harrowing performance they were generous to offer an encore, Schubert’s “Im Abendrot,” a song of similar darkness and beauty. It was an altogether enthralling afternoon.