Deborah Voigt’s First Visit to Mainland China Caps Spring Season
Deborah Voigt makes her debut in mainland China this month, when she rediscovers her inner Broadway baby in concerts with Beijing’s China Philharmonic (May 25) and the Shanghai Symphony (May 31). Both performances will be led by Kristen Blodgette, under whose direction Voigt headlined Annie Get Your Gun at the 2011 Glimmerglass Festival. Late spring also finds the soprano gracing an orchestral gala with the Puerto Rico Symphony on June 8, and giving recitals in Jackson, MS (May 17) and Northridge, CA (May 19). These engagements follow a recent pair of “Ring” cycles at the Metropolitan Opera, where she reprised her hit portrayal of Brünnhilde, “a role she has made her own” (New York Times).
As Voigt comments, “Singing American songs is always a special highlight on any program, but to sing them for the first time in China is especially exciting.” Besides reigning supreme in the opera house, the soprano has also long been recognized as “a first-rate singer of popular American song” (Wall Street Journal). She regularly champions show tunes in recital, and when she undertook the title role in Annie Get Your Gun at the 2011 Glimmerglass Festival, the New York Times pronounced her performance “delightful” and found that her “spitfire sassiness come[s] across as affectingly authentic.” For her debut appearances with the Shanghai Symphony and the China Philharmonic, where she will help celebrate the latter orchestra’s 13th anniversary, the soprano will sing favorite selections from shows by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Hart, Lerner and Loewe, Sondheim, Weill, Gershwin, Kern, Berlin, Willson, Porter, Lloyd Webber, and Strouse. Songs will include “My Man’s Gone Now” from Porgy and Bess, in which – as the New York Times reported after a 2011 Carnegie Hall performance – Voigt’s “magnificent sound unfurl[ed] in scorching tongues of fire.” Full program details are provided below.
Showstoppers from My Fair Lady and Annie Get Your Gun are also on the agenda when the soprano headlines a gala concert with the Puerto Rico Symphony and Maximiano Valdés. The gala’s primary purpose, however, is to honor the twin bicentennials of operatic giants Wagner and Verdi, and it is in Wagner’s iconic “Immolation Scene” that Voigt’s performance as Brünnhilde will serve as the grand finale.
Her command of the role recently drew praise at the Metropolitan Opera, where Voigt sang Wagner’s valkyrie for two complete “Ring” cycles in a reprise of the company’s Grammy Award-winning production. As Forbes noted, “Voigt’s Brünnhilde was lush and powerful. … Her character displayed far more complexity than the simple straightforward Siegfried, turning what might otherwise have been a rather banal love scene into one layered with doubt and hope.”
Next season, in addition to a full performing schedule, the soprano will serve as the first Artist-in-Residence in the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program. In this newly created role, she will work with young artists throughout the season, conducting individual coaching sessions, presenting group classes on a variety of repertoire, and leading career roundtable discussions.
Details of Voigt’s upcoming performances are provided below, and further information is available at her web site: www.deborahvoigt.com.
Deborah Voigt: upcoming engagements
May 17
Jackson, MS
Mississippi Opera
Opera recital
May 19
Northridge, CA
Valley Performing Arts Center
California State University
Recital
May 25
Beijing, China
Orchestral concert
China Philharmonic
May 31
Shanghai, China
Orchestral concert
Shanghai Symphony
June 8
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Orchestral concert (gala)
Wagner: “Starke Scheite schichtet mir dort” (Immolation Scene)
Encores from Annie Get Your Gun and My Fair Lady
Puerto Rico Symphony
Voigt’s program with the China Philharmonic and Shanghai Symphony
“Till There Was You,” “My White Knight” and “Goodnight My Someone” from The Music Man (1957) by Meredith Willson
“Losing My Mind” from Follies (1971) by Stephen Sondheim
“The Sound of Music” and “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music (1959) by Rodgers and Hammerstein
“If I Loved You” from Carousel (1945) by Rodgers and Hammerstein
“Something Wonderful” from The King and I (1951) by Rodgers and Hammerstein
“Why Was I Born” from Sweet Adeline (1929) by Jerome Kern
“Can’t Get a Man with a Gun” and “I Got Lost in His Arms” from Annie Get Your Gun (1946) by Irving Berlin
“Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” from On Your Toes (1936) by Rodgers and Hart
“Blame It on the Summer Night” from Rags (1986) by Charles Strouse
“So in Love” from Kiss Me Kate (1948) by Cole Porter
“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” and “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady (1956) by Lerner and Loewe
“Phantom Medley” from The Phantom of the Opera (1986) by Andrew Lloyd Webber
“I’m A Stranger Here Myself” from One Touch of Venus (1943) by Kurt Weill
“My Man’s Gone Now” from Porgy and Bess (1935) by George Gershwin
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© 21C Media Group, May 2013