It is a rare occasion these days for even the rich to be treated to live entertainment of such a rarefied and operatic quality, but that is precisely the type and caliber of diversions that can be had here at UTM.
I am, of course, speaking specifically of Rebekah Mansfield’s recital on Nov. 9, which was as delightful as can be expected of such a well-trained vocalist. I had heard Mansfield sing once before at the Voice Studio recitals and she repeated that stellar performance here.
The first performance of the night was Handel’s “Oh Had I Jubal’s Lyre,” a piece that demonstrated the command of her own voice, the room and the composition and set the tone for the evening. I found her voice was most-suited to older works, as it has a resonant and operatic quality that is best captured in these older songs.
For example, in her rendition of “Intorno all’idol Mio,” and “Quella Fiamma Che m’accende,” pieces attributed to Cesti and Marcello respectively, her ability to capture the emotion of the piece in her tone, intensity and the extent of her range was quite impressive.
The sense of the melancholy that was so deftly recreated in “Intorno” can also be contrasted quite well with “Saper, voreste” (composition by Giuseppe Verdi), which is light and playful in tone and conveyance. While this type of music is not typically thought of as “upbeat,” Mansfield is too charming with her performance, her faux chuckling and lilting adding a great deal more liveliness and character into the performance.
“Saper” was likely, in my mind, her best performance of the night, but she developed a similar sort of spirited delight in “Chanson d’Amour,” a more contemporary piece where her treatment of the sweetness of the French language elevated what is, by all accounts, a simple blazon to something a bit more, as the French would say, interessant.
The evening came to a close with an original piece by Duke University composer Stephen Downing, entitled “when/all/refuse,” an experimentation with some disconnected fragments of the Old Testament that the composer felt would leave room for the audience to, “fill in the gaps between the fragments and impart their own meaning into the text.”
As contemporary compositions go, it was passable, but I found it much more fitting that she made a surprise reappearance to leave her audience with a Groucho Marx-esque parting song lamenting the swift passing of the evening.
In a nutshell, it was a charming, enjoyable and brilliant piece of performance on the part of Mansfield and the music department.
