Zephyr Adeptly Meets Demands Of ‘Facade’
Zephyr Friday, Oct. 4, The Met
Zephyr breezed into its 1996-97 season at The Met Friday with an outstanding performance of William Walton’s and Edith Sitwell’s zestful “Facade.” The full title calls this work “an entertainment,” and that it was and more - a lighthearted look into the English avant-garde of the 1920s.
“Facade” was complemented by the original piano-duet version of Samuel Barber’s “Souvenirs.”
The name “Facade” springs out of the pages of practically every book about 20th-century classical music, but the work itself is seldom programmed. Friday’s performance reminded me why: It’s just plain hard.
“Facade” calls for two reciters who can clearly enunciate Sitwell’s surrealistic poems with precise rhythmic accuracy to Walton’s music, much of it going at lightning speed. The accompanying instrumental group calls for six performers adept at styles that cross back and forth from the song-and-dance crazes of the ‘20s to Stravinskian neo-classicism, touching here and there on the creepy-crawly German expressionism a la Schoenberg.
On top of that, it requires a sharp-eared conductor who can keep things together and in balance.
Kendall Feeney, Zephyr’s artistic director, made an impressive public conducting debut in “Facade.” She is known as a splendid pianist and a good violist, but she proved Friday that she also possesses considerable conducting skill with very difficult music.
Actors Phyllis Silver and Ron Varela dealt admirably and entertainingly with the difficulties and fun of Sitwell’s poems.
Varela was at his best and funniest in the fast patter of pieces like the “Scotch Rhapsody,” featuring a bagpiper boring the animals “worse than a nine-bore gun.” Silver was hilarious impersonating Sir Joshua Jebb, haughtily reminding his uppity daughters that “Hell is just as properly proper as Greenwich, or as Bath or Joppa.”
The instrumentalists, most of them Spokane Symphony players, were fine. It is difficult to single out favorites. But I especially enjoyed the parody of ‘20s jazz in “Something Lies Behind the Scene” and Fred Winkler’s nostalgic saxophone solos in the “Swiss Jodelling Song.”
Friday’s program began with Barber’s “Souvenirs,” the composer’s affectionate reflection on dance music of his childhood and youth.
Both Linda Siverts and Feeney are unquestionably superb pianists, but, oh, so different in musical personality. That difference left some ragged edges on Barber’s highly polished surfaces.
, DataTimes