By Baker Purdon, Music Fellow
When I accepted The Presser Foundation’s Graduate Music Fellowship, I knew I would have the opportunity to see some of the best performances Philadelphia has at every level of music-making. I can genuinely say that Lyric Fest’s Elysian Fields: Dawns, Dreams & Visions was exactly what I had hoped for and more. The program ranged from exuberant joy to tongue-in-cheek cabaret tunes and elegiac sorrow.
Lyric Fest was founded in 2003 by Suzanne DuPlantis and Laura Ward, who remain as Co-Artistic Directors to this day. Over the past 20 seasons, DuPlantis and Ward have presented over 100 distinctly crafted and curated concert programs celebrating the best, brightest, and most promising voices in the United States and abroad. Previous press has praised their “excellence and innovation in creating rich, thematic, accessible concerts.” This could not be more true – the program for Elysian Fields struck a difficult-to-find balance of intellectual, visceral, and accessible with great success.
Elysian Fields invited Chinese-American mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce and Polish-American soprano Magdalena Kuźma to share works ranging from Tchaikovsky and Chopin to Heggie, Higdon, and Cipullo.
Sun-Ly Pierce is a fast-rising star in Opera, having recently debuted in not one but four new roles at Houston Grand Opera, with additional engagements scheduled at Des Moines Metro Opera, San Francisco Opera, Aspen Opera Theater, Opera Philadelphia, and Houston Grand Opera. Her rich, versatile voice would be enrapturing on its own. Still, the union of acting and singing Pierce brings to this repertoire is utterly captivating.
Magdalena Kuźma, who provided many of the translations in the program notes herself (an impressive added touch), is a perfect pair with Pierce. Having been named a Prize Winner in both the Concert Artists Guild (NY) and Young Classical Artists Trust International Auditions in 2022, Kuźma has joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York this season as a Lindemann Young Artist where, among other performances, she will perform the role of Giannetta in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. Kuźma rapidly shifts between profound heft and delicate precision throughout the recital, demonstrating the expressive and highly technical singing one often hears from the great sopranos. Her resumé and performance show that she is equally at home with classical operatic repertoire and contemporary music.
Pierce and Kuźma are an enigmatic and dynamic duo. They shine in every aspect when paired for this wide-ranging and highly emotional program.
A highlight of the recital was Pierce’s offering of Leo Ferré’s La mort des amants and La pipe. As accompanist and Artistic Director Laura Ward said before this set, “All we’re missing is a cigarette and an ashtray on the piano.” Pierce did transport the audience to a hazy, dimly lit French cabaret. The compositions immediately remind the listener of Edith Piaf’s witty and tragic singing – Piaf, however, could hardly grow into Pierce’s luxuriously rhapsodic tone. Even in La pipe, a humorous, tongue-in-cheek number, Pierce’s technique and color are truly unique.
Not to leave all the glory to Pierce’s wit and beauty, Kuźma followed with Two Songs (from Opus 38) by the master of pianistic expression, Sergei Rachmaninoff. Ay! (‘The Quest’) and Сон (Dream) are wide-ranging in their tenderness and explosive expression; Ward and Kuźma matched this at every turn. They belied the audience into a lullaby-esque sense of calm before triumphantly declaring their mastery over this grandiose music.
I offer the same response as the audience following the final notes – BRAVI TUTTI!
Lyric Fest’s upcoming performances include “A Singer’s Singer: A Biography in Music of Winnaretta Singer” on November 12 & 13, 2022, and “Cotton,” a multi-media new song cycle happening, inspired by the cotton photography of Philadelphia artist John Dowell on February 25, 2023. More details can be found on their website at www.lyricfest.org.
