Concerto
Londra, Barbican Center, ottobre 1998
| Farewell to a legend. Marilyn
Horne at the Barbican, London EC2 AS THE encores were about to begin at the end of Marilyn Horne's song recital, a voice shouted "Give us an operatic aria". Ms Horne declined. It is 44 years since she dubbed Dorothy Dandridge's voice in Carmen Jones; in January she will be 70. Instead she took the audience by surprise and announced the evening as her London farewell, apart maybe from "a little Gershwin and Berlin one day". She added, with the direct humour that has been her trademark: "The old grey mare ain't what she used to be." Well, the old grey mare is still in pretty good vocal shape, given the right music. A group of early songs by Barber found Horne articulating every syllable and never pressurising the voice. A set by the contemporary composer William Bolcom from I will Breathe a Mountain moved her further off the well-beaten recital paths. This was eclectic material, cabaret rubbing shoulders with introspection. Nor was Horne going to choose the obvious in Bernstein. There were two songs from Peter Pan, hardly his best-known work. Serious Bernstein came in Sonnet XLVIII, which showed off Horne's still mighty chest register, and frivolous Bernstein surfaced in Rabbit at Top Speed, a patter piece Poulenc might have written. Berlin provided the final set, all standards. A few years back Horne might have let rip with those foghorn sounds of a battleship coming into harbour. Now she prefers the intimate style of a sophisticated Manhattan supper club. Smile and Show Your Dimple, which Berlin later reworked as Easter Parade, was outstanding, although the accompanist, Brian Zeger, could have used a lighter touch. Then the songs of farewell: Always, The Man I Love and, most magically, Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. You cannot have an American evening without Stephen Foster. A memorable close from an all-American lady. John Higgins, The Times, 13 ottobre 1998 |