Atlantis: The Wordless Search for the Lost Continent
A return to Avery Fisher Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra
On January 29, 2010, Mr. Hays performed Henry Cowell’s experimental oratorio Atlantis at Avery Fisher Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra. The concert marked Hays’s second performance with the ASO this season, the first having been the American premier of Vincent D’Indy’s opera, Fervaal in October. Though Atlantis contains no words, communicating its plot entirely through love calls, snarls, growls, croons, and sighs, the work was in fact fashioned after a story. Leta E. Miller of the University of California, Santa Cruz provides the following synopsis on www.dramonline.org:
“On a moonless night in the Cyclopsian period before Adam, the Terramares, a moon-worshipping people, shoot a message to the moon asking her to create a Feminine Soul. They wound the moon with their arrows, causing the moon goddess Aserte to weep. Her tears give birth to the Soul in the ocean depths. The Earth Monster, attracted by her beauty, entices her with the wealth of the land. Entranced by the glittering gems of the earth, the Soul dances in pleasure, but the moonbeams draw her back towards the sea. A battle ensues between the Sea-King, who refuses to give up the Soul, and the Earth-Monster, desperate to possess her. The Earth emerges as victor and the Sea, enraged by defeat, implants in the Soul all evil. He warns that through her, he will spread evil over the earth and then rise to engulf the world.”
Mr. Hays performed the role of the Sea-King, the villain of the tale, who curses the Soul in the final movement with an expression of dynamic rage, “Gla ta mee tcha te la do!” Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times praised the work as “wondrously strange music”, and Harry Rolnick of concerto.net expressed great pleasure in hearing “singers imitating fire-engines, roaring up and down the scales, harmonizing, playing against each other at times, always working with the orchestra, both a “trick”, and a frothy mix”.
Hot Time, Summer in the City
NY Performances in June, July, and August
After refashioning one of his signature roles, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, for the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra in May, Mr. Hays was heard throughout New York in concert engagements from Symphony Space in Manhattan to the Bard Music Festival in Annandale-on-Hudson.
In June, Mr. Hays was featured in a rare performance of Frederick Delius’s “Pagan” Requiem with the Central City Chorus. Because of the enormous size of the chorus and orchestra required to produce it, and the popularity of large works for orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, Gustav Mahler, and other famous composers, the work has only been heard five times in the United States. Mr. Hays and conductor Stephen Black honored this deeply moving work with a splendid reading of the score for a delighted audience at Symphony Space.
Closely following his collaboration with the Central City Chorus, Mr. Hays performed again with Maestro Black in a production of Stefan Weisman’s new opera Fade with the American Opera Projects. A one-act work for three singers, Fade compares the setting of the sun during a power outage to a strained marital relationship. Hays’s moments of humor and failed attempts at connecting, accentuated by the poignant music of composer Stefan Weisman, were well received in the modern and non-traditional Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn.
Last summer at the Bard Music Festival, Mr. Hays enjoyed such a success in his concert of Gershwin, Porter, and Vernon Duke (a.k.a. Dukelsky) standards that he was invited back in August to perform a program lampooning and celebrating the music of Richard Wagner. As a reprise of sorts to Hays's performances as John Wellington Wells in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Sorcerer two years ago, the audience was treated to a rousing rendition of the Lord Chancellor's fiendishly difficult patter song, "Love, Unrequited, Robs Me of My Rest," from Iolanthe.
Engagements in October and November include a concert performance of Vincent D'Indy's opera Fervaal at Avery Fisher Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra, and a performance of Jorge Martin's song cycle The Glass Hammer at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.
Bach Cantatas Sprout in Spring
Lenten concert ushers in the new season
In March, Jonathan was heard performing two of J.S. Bach’s Cantatas for baritone and chamber orchestra, Ich habe genug and Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, as part of the Music at Pine Street series in Harrisburg, PA. Hays chose these particular Cantatas for the Lenten devotional because of their dark and contemplative nature. Both works express a deep yearning for an end to life’s suffering and a longing for bliss in the world beyond. The Festival Orchestra for the program, conducted by Organist and Choirmaster Thomas Clark Jones, featured the talents of violinist John Eaken of the Grammy-nominated Eaken Piano Trio and the sublime oboe playing of Thomas Rowe of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra.
Next month, Hays will bow as Count Almaviva in the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra’s production of Le Nozze di Figaro in Lafayette, LA, and he returns to Harrisburg at the beginning of May for performances of G.F. Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum with the Harrisburg Choral Society.
A Winter Whirlwind of Concerts
Performances on Both Coasts Fill the Holiday Season
In November and December, Jonathan maintained a hectic concert schedule, performing in the cities of Winchester, VA; Los Angeles, CA; Carlisle, PA; and Harrisburg, PA.
On November 15, Jonathan was featured in the inaugural concert of the Winchester Orchestra in Winchester, VA, singing Maurice Ravel’s three-song masterpiece, "Don Quichotte à Dulcinée". When the Orchestra’s founder, Andrew Gekoskie, approached Mr. Hays about a piece for the concert, he suggested the songs as a light, charming, and witty to end the first half of the evening’s program. Excerpts of the recording will soon be available on the Sound Clips page.
The following week, Mr. Hays was performing again, this time in Josef Haydn’s, "The Creation" with the Dickinson College Choir and the Dickinson Orchestra in Carlisle, PA. Mr. Hays was hired over the summer as Dickinson College's "Artist Faculty in Voice", a position he sought both for the prestige of the school, and for its proximity to his family home in Mechanicsburg. The new post brings the baritone to South Central PA to give weekly lessons to undergraduate students, as well as to perform at the institution throughout the year. For his faculty recital on November 6, 2009, he will bring pianist Craig Ketter to Dickinson for a performance of Jorge Martin's, 'The Glass Hammer', which the duo performed to rave reviews in North Carolina this summer.
On December 3, the baritone flew to Los Angeles, CA for encore performances of Rob Kapilow’s whimsical song-cycle for Orchestra, “And Furthermore, They Bite”, with the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts. Mr. Hays performed the cycle with Mr. Kapilow earlier in 2008 with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, singing 10 performances there as part of their educational series, Young People’s Concerts.
Jonathan ended his pre-Holiday concerts with an orchestral performance of Randall Thompson’s rarely heard oratorio, “The Nativity of St. Luke”, with the Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, PA. Mr. Hays will return there in March as part of their music series “Music at Pine Street” for a program of music by J.S. Bach, featuring the famous cantatas, ‘Ich Habe Genug’ and ‘Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen’. For details, please see his Upcoming Performances page.
Summertime and the Singing Is Easy
Festival Performances Well Received by Warm Weather Audiences
Over the past summer, Jonathan sang two recital programs for festival audeinces on the East coast. The first, a repeat performance of Jorge Martin's tour de force song cycle for baritone, "The Glass Hammer" was warmly acknowledged by audience and critics alike at the Long Leaf Opera Festival in Chapel Hill, NC. A review by Roy C. Dicks for Classical Voice of North Carolina said of his performance with pianist Craig Ketter:
"The singer is crucial here, not merely for beauty of voice and clarity of text, but for the individualization of the characters. Here, the experienced opera singer Jonathan Hays confidently supplied everything that was necessary for success. His full, mellow baritone ranged from the softest half voice to the grandest thundering outburst, while his acting of the bellowing father, the admonishing mother, the elderly grandmother, and the innocent kid brother was detailed and nuanced.
Craig Ketter was an equal partner at the piano, his precision and control allowing for breath-taking delicacy and roof-rattling power. His empathetic connection with
Hays made the performance a beautifully integrated whole."
Hays hopes to perform the recital again next year as part of the faculty recital program at Dickinson College. Portions of the DVD performance will soon be available online.
The second program, a return to the Bard Music Festival in a recital of the music of George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Vernon Duke, provided Mr. Hays an opportunity to show his lighter side, which he will show again this month with the St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra in a program of patriotic music composed during the same era. The Bard program was not reviewed, but his performance enthusiastically received by a sold out Festival audience.
