I adore writing positive reviews of performances that have thrilled me, where I have witnessed genius, or experienced unexpected and fascinating novelty. I usually refrain from writing negative reviews, but sometimes I need to voice my opinion about a performance that had promised to be thrilling, but turned out to be what my ears would consider unsatisfactory.
When classical music is combined with microphones, digital tech, and sound engineers that don’t properly assess the hall’s characteristics, it invites a multitude of problems. What could go wrong? A good example was the concert on April 10th entitled “Electric Fields,” a project by award-winning contemporary music diva Barbara Hannigan and her colleagues, at Müpa. This performance was one of the more anticipated events in the annual Bartók Spring Festival.
Hannigan’s and French composer/pianist David Chalmin’s thematic concept was an Old World/New World blend of musical styles configured as a transcendental float through the Medieval era, using modern instruments and modalities. Through voluminous billows of stage smoke, we witnessed a non-stop tapestry of religious chants by Hildegard von Bingen; secular songs by Barbara Strozzi and Francesca Caccini interspersed with two modern songs by Chalmin; and ending with a short aria by Hannigan herself.
Accompanying her were the wonderful duo pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque (known for their adventurous programming) on two fully-open Steinways, and Chalmin standing at an onstage electronics desk module/keyboard. A well-designed light show, beginning with a solar-eclipse-level of sparkle until it cleverly turned into Luciferian red when we got to the passionate Italian repertoire, was the literal highlight of the whole concert.
What went wrong was the musical aspect, and I think it had more to do with the engineering rather than the performers themselves. The sound system’s entire setup unfortunately boosted what was basically accompaniment, which then overshadowed the soloist’s content into something unrecognizable. She had brought her own two-man team of light and sound guys to set up the show in Müpa’s main symphonic hall, whose natural acoustics are incredibly wonderful for just about anything, except maybe a solo lute concert. These acoustics could have been easily employed for the four-person chamber group, but they were replaced by tedious high-tech obfuscation.
I do realize, however, that the title of the concert obviously implied the event was not going to be acoustic, but would be wired, probably for effects. But it turned out to be a lopsided sonic overload that favored the percussive, high-volume Steinways over the single singer who was trying to cast spells and convey delicate religious mystery.
Hannigan’s fluid vocal meanderings were barely audible unless she zoomed her voice up to the stratosphere – admittedly, this is where she is truly glorious – but alas, whatever words she was singing were unintelligible. We in the audience had no printed song lyrics to clue us in.
The most critical problem that this setup created affected Hannigan herself: she was consistently under-pitch with the very instruments that were playing her exact notes. This I would not have expected Hannigan to allow in her wildest dreams, as she’s known as being the ultimate diva for pitch-perfect contemporary music, as well as an international conductor of note. Was she not able to hear her monitor? (There were two large monitors in front of her.) Or, was her pitch problem something that has developed over time as an oto-laryngological issue?
Less critical, but nevertheless disappointing, was that most of Chalmin’s derivative moto-perpetuo piano arrangements (and also those of arranger Bryce Dessner) felt like recycled minimalism from the 80s and 90s, with much less ingenuity.
Hannigan, at the end, was finally allowed more sonic space to improvise with her wide range – from a lusty contralto to etheric high notes – in an almost wordless chant. It’s only a pity that in those final moments, she showed little sense of knowing how to fashion the kind of ending that would inspire her listeners to respond with the rapture she was attempting to create. The concert was only an hour, but it seemed much longer.