two recitals

B. accompanied me to Stanford twice this weekend for a pair of student vocal recitals, each by a collection of students of one voice teacher or another.

The better and more popular of these - it packed the small rehearsal hall it was held in on Saturday evening, to the surprise of the performers, though they shouldn't have been - was by students of the estimable Wendy Hillhouse doing an elaborate and extensive all-Sondheim program, 24 numbers from 11 shows written over a 25-year period. There were a few cases of miscasting, and a regrettably large amount of flubbing lines, but all the singers were good.

Judging purely by results here, Sondheim's best show is Follies, as the two solo numbers from that were highlights: the saturnine Ian Anstee (also the Wolf in Into the Woods and George in Sunday in the Park, and he should have done Sweeney) in Buddy's frantically neurotic blues number, and the turbo-powered Taylor Wright (who regrettably did nothing else) in "Broadway Baby." Zoë Sonnenberg forgot bits of her fast-nervous patter as Amy in "Getting Married Today" from Company, but she was hilarious doing it. The evening finished up with the first act finale from Into the Woods, as of course it would.

A regular Friday noon concert was less attended. This featured four sopranos and a tenor doing a couple songs apiece, a mixture from opera, concert song, and musical theater. B's professional ear and eye produced a few lessons for my consideration on the drive home:
1. If you're a soprano, don't sing a piece in the mezzo range. You won't be able to put any power behind it, and you'll be inaudible.
2. Even if your piece is an opera aria, don't act the whole thing out in a song recital.
3. A minidress that looks like your abbreviated nightie is inadvisable for this venue.

Some of the singing was good, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's setting of Desdemona's sorrowful "willow, willow" was an impressive compositional discovery. But the tenor, who badly needed a tune-up, and also some remedial lessons on the phonemes of English (not his native tongue) and stage presence, attempted King George's song "You'll Be Back" from Hamilton, with results as grisly as you might imagine.