artyfakt - a view on arts and lifestyle

Winterreise - by ... whom?

2009-10-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday, 13th October, my friend and I went to Esplanade Recital Studio. The Young Musicians Society has organized a German Arts Song recital in its lovely after eight series: concerts that start at one minute past 8 (doesn´t change anything on the audience attitude, some make it still a after 8.30 series).
We went because the wonderful and not easy to sing song cycle Die Winterreise was on the programme. By whom? That was the first little pain the programme gave us: we, both singing teachers, always thought, Winterreise was by Franz Schubert. But the programme made clear to us: Hey, Schubert is not that important. Today, Winterreise is solely by Eng Meng Chia ... with a little help by Shane Thio. The title page of the programme as well as the advertisement postcard write: "Winterreise by Eng Meng Chia", Schubert not mentioned. And this problem stayed on during the performance.
Impressive, that the recital studio was really full. Soon and unpleasantly one could soon see that it was a lot of the singers wellwishers and friends. Did the announcement say, please do not clap in between the songs but only at the end of the first part? Most of the audience was so wellwishing and pleased when the singer got through the first song, that they started to clap afterwards, and kept doing so after each song. This is something, that is just not allowed to happen in a song cycle. And the singer could have avoided it. However, instead of trying to add one song tightly after the other, and keeping up his stage presence to indicate clearly to the audience that there is no space for clapping, Eng started to relax after each song, turn around, clear his nose, and drink from a plastic water bottle, visibly placed beside the piano. With the songs progressing, the gaps for drinking became longer and longer. Those who know song cycles better , know, that some songs belong together in emotional or sense units, yes even the keys are sometimes so related that it is obvious that one song must lead straight into the other...but this was all destroyed. It became an annoyance, clapping, drinking, and the songs being not understood and representing what they are supposed to create emotionally in the audience.
Unfortunately, also the singing of the Baritone seemed to become increasingly forced and painful throughout the first 12 songs. Mainly staying in the same posture, after drinking and rubbing the nose leaning with a selfpleasant grin at the piano, the forte passages reminded more and more of shouts than expressive singing, the piano passages less and less supported and therefore increasingly covered. Eng sounded initially, (and his credentials promised so) as if he knows what he is doing. His voice sounded like having a profund technique and his German diction was clear at the start. but (using a score at the side), more and more words got mixed up. It still sounded clear, but those who had memorized Winterreise, or those who know German, found that some words were made up or exchanged. Doubtless, the man has a wide range, a strong voice, and a lot of courage to put up the entire Winterreise. After the concert, which i left at the intermission because I could not accept the harshness of the voice and the drinking and clapping, i wished, people would have less courage and more respect for the level of difficulty of a piece, more respect for the composer and what he wanted, and more influence on the audience not to behave so unknowledgable.
I m not a Lied hardliner, always open to different interpretations: I love the totally baroque sung version of Michael Schopper, the psycho film with Ian Bostridge, the old man Fischer-Dieskau. However different their nuances are, I can feel they made their thoughts about what Schubert meant, and take Schubert still as the authority for their singing.
Even Shane, the pianist, seemed to be not what he usually is: I love the man as Lied accompanist, in many many recitals. But here, there were mistakes, and I know if he is fully into it, he would have brought out some nuances much more, but it was as if he had given up on it already.

I want to end with a remark my former student wrote on my facebook. She is Musical Theatre student, therefore not preoccupied about classical pieces which classical musicians might treat like drops from the holy gral. and i find it interesting to hear her remarks about classical music:

"am writing analytical paper about der lindenbaum, schubert setting evidently. DUDE. i should totally get you to come guest speak at wesleyan. [...] but dude! how awesome would that be. okay anyway i just wanted to say winterreise is like a bad emo rock album. the guy's walking around all suicidal and the leaves remind him of his ex girlfriend... i mean seriously... and the bostridge movie you can find on youtube is really weird."

I think, she got it better than the performance last Tuesday. At least she feels something.

Mozart Requiem

2009-10-11T08:51:00.001-07:00

Dir : Rolf Beck

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Schleswig Holstein Festival Choir

Aneta Mihalyova, Soprano

Milda Tubelyte, Alto

patricio Aroyo, Tenor

Florian Hille, Baritone

performed today, 11.th october at Voctoria Concert Hall

Schubert´s Unfinished Symphony

and Mozart´s Requiem

I am not too fond of the symphony, but the Requiem was a pleasant surprise. An absolutely disciplined choir, wonderfully present and clear in their piano, and strong in their forte. The soloist quartett, albeit internationally less known, was tastefully humble and beautiful, few timing issues in the alto, but with a crystal clear easily shining soprano.

Without big names and stardom, an evening celebrating music !

Sapore – revisited

2009-10-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

Having attended and blogged about the opening of Sapore lifestyle bar and cafe at City Hall, it was definitely of interest that my friend and I would revisit the place to eat Gnocchi and check how much of the promised is kept on an everyday base. A light dilemma was the result of our visits. We both came out with different treatment and levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and we both realized pros and cons of the new place.
My friend went alone for a lunchtime set meal. He was all in all disappointed on most levels. His positive points were the good fresh free bread while waiting for the menu, and the taste of the food itself. However, sold as a set meal, the treat included merely a small portion of Gnocchi and on the same plate a small green salad without dressing. Complimentary was only a glass of plain water. This all for the price of 20$. After this lunch, he needed to go somewhere else to eat again and satisfy his hunger. Advertising with credit card payment facilities, the card machine was reportedly not working that day, forcing my friend to pay cash. However, few days later, he found two bookings from the restaurant on his creditcard bill, not over the real charge but a wrong amount (komma slipped to the left 2 digits). Imagine this happens with your credit card and the comma slips to the right, and u get charged twice 2000$ instead of 20$, and this after you had paid cash already. Makes us also wonder, how can the credit card machine get access to my friend´s account without any receipt or without him signing? I think, if this was about more money, it could be quite a dirty case.
I went a few days later for a dinner with my lady friend, who is known in the restaurant as frequent customer. She had also informed the restaurant of the complaints of my friend. No wonder, our treatment was then much better. The Italian waiter would have done probably anything to keep her happy; we got deserts for free, he was pretty good in suggesting the correct wine. I realized, that on the menu for the set meal, they have added an additional coffee. Now, I am a Gnocchi fan, and i haven’t found a place in Singapore with good Gnocchi... and there they were....really wonderful Gnocchi. The taste was great. Yet, I have to agree with my friend, a small portion of Gnocchi and salad beside it on the same plate doesn’t make up for a set meal ... for a meal i would expect 3 things...a starter, main, and desert or coffee. Yes, they added coffee...but what happened? I asked for the coffee to come first, but the coffee did not come at all. Only when we went out of the restaurant we realized, we had a bottle of wine, but we never got the complimentary coffee. However, the waiter, trying to keep my lady friend happy, brought free desert.
Discussing with my friend about the value for money issue, I learnt about the fact that a bar in City Hall is just higher end, higher price, and that the prices reflect hotel prices of fine dining. I m not a cheapo, i understand that, however, I also understand that for fine dining level, the restaurant has to live up to that level first before demanding to be treated as fine dining place by the customer. A fine dining place would have nicely designed menus instead of here A4 photocopies in a school-kid folder, staff with the correct middle way between being attentative and not dominating, portions that satisfy, and no punking with payment issues.
So now we have a dilemma: finally i found very nice Gnocchi, but at fine dining prices at a place that does not yet live up to the level of fine dining. What to do? Ask for the special price of take-away Gnocchi? Learn to make Gnocchi myself?
Whereas my friend has put Sapore on his ristaurante non grata list, i will try it again after a while, because I always believe in the chance to improve.

Wine Tasting and Indulgance dinner at Magma, German Wine Restaurant

2009-10-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

Head Chef Untung Sridadi Taurat (doesn’t sound German, but the way he cooks, i would adopt him as my mother) and the owner Leonardo Noto compose a 5 course menu with dishes around one major ingredient, and 5 different suitable German wines accompanying.
Last Sunday´s topic was “mushrooms”. It doesn’t seem to unusual for Singaporean cuisine either, but the way mushroom, as sauce, or as filling, is often prepared in Germany, is very tasty, with sour cream very savoury tasty. No wonder, I felt in my element as Bavarian: Pork Knuckle, Brezn, and Schwammerlsoßn. OH MEI !!!
The wines were this time more on the dry side (whereas I am more the sweety). What amazed me the most was then indeed the final wine going with the desert. There was already a smell of berries in the bouquet.
If there is one combining topic for all 5 courses, Chef Untang will always face the challenge to create a desert with a savoury ingredient, or (rarely) the starting and main courses including something sweet. He has yet again surprised us with a marvellous composition: was it 3 months ago a vanilla thyme (thyme topic) sauce to the desert, 2 months ago asparagus (=topic) jelly between two chocolate leaves, he soaked this time Portobello mushrooms in a cherry dip, and made his own sesame honey ice cream ... die die must try.
For 70$ ++ a dinner to indulge indeed.

And here, the teaser ...

Shiitake mushroom + baby leaf spinach pudding flavored with ramson and nutmeg with the wine: Schloss Castell (Franken), SILVANER "Kugelspiel" 2008 dry

Slow cooked oxtail consommee with abalone mushrooms, as wine Florian Weingart (Mittelrhein), SPAETBURGUNDER (PINOT NOIR) blanc de noir 2007 dry

Pan fried chanterelles rolled in herbal pancake with red wine shallot + sour cream ,
as wine Drautz-Able (Wuerttemberg), LEMBERGER 2006 dry

Souffle from pork knuckle + pretzel accompanied by "Schwammerl Sosse" (traditional South German mushroom sauce) with Friedrich Becker (Pfalz), "B" SPAETBURGUNDER (PINOT NOIR) 2006 dry

Semi braised Portobello mushrooms under sesame honey ice cream + Morello cherry dip, as wine Johanninger (Rheinhessen), "J" HUXELREBE Beerenauslese 1999 nobel sweet

Sapore Italiano - opening of a new lifestyle cafe bar @ Raffles City

2009-09-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

>I hope you will eat some Italian lifestyle here<>

With friendly staff, modern tasteful interior, and an enthusiastic Italian chef, the wellwishes of the speakers for a good business might find fullfillment. The chef, however, was browbeating the wish for good business down, as if he wanted to sing out:

MAMA MIA, IT´S ABOUT THE FOOD AND NOT ABOUT BUSINESS.

I will wait for a second visit to check how the everyday menu can keep the promises of the opening, and will blog about it again soon....

but here some teasers