The New Yorker - 18.11.2019

78 THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 18, 2019

Bullock applied her expressive intelligence to Schumann’s “Dichterliebe.”

MUSICAL EVENTS

SORROWFUL SONGS

Julia Bullock and Christian Gerhaher bring fresh approaches to classic lieder.

BY ALEX ROSS

ILLUSTRATION BY AMY MATSUSHITA-BEAL

A

decade ago, Jane Moss, the ar­
tistic director of Lincoln Center,
launched the White Light Festival,
intending to foster a reflective, spir­
itually tinged mode of spectatorship
in an age of digital frenzy. The festi­
val’s name came from a remark by the
composer Arvo Pärt: “I could compare
my music to white light, which con­
tains all colors.” Initially, the concept
inspired a few giggles around town; one
heard the title pronounced in a breathy,
yoga­ instructor murmur. Yet Moss was
prescient in how she analyzed the cul­
tural landscape of the early twenty­first
century. At a time when many people
clung to naïve notions about the lib­

eratory capacities of total connectivity,

she spoke about the damage that social

media and mobile devices were doing

to our inner lives. Now we know bet­

ter how a constant flow of informa­

tion can obscure, rather than sharpen,

our perceptions. Conversely, a period

of contemplative distance can put re­

ality in sharp relief. The arts are never

simply a refuge from worldly complex­

ities. Even the purest, most ethereal

work—an abstraction by Geneviève

Asse, a string quartet by Linda Catlin

Smith—can leave us in a state of vul­

nerable awareness.

Moss’s approach to musical presen­

tation may sound quietistic, but it has

often challenged the age­old, trance­

inducing routines of classical perfor­

mance. Both at White Light and at

other Lincoln Center series, Moss has

encouraged experiments in the theat­

ricalization of concerts and recitals.

Peter Sellars directed the Berlin Phil­

harmonic and the Berlin Radio Cho­

rus in a majestic staging of the “St. Mat­

thew Passion.” Jochen Sandig made

use of the same chorus in a solemn

fantasia on Brahms’s “German Re­

quiem.” Schubert’s “Winterreise” has

been the focus of two productions: one

by William Kentridge, with the bari­

tone Matthias Goerne; another by Katie

Mitchell, with Mark Padmore singing

Schubert songs and Stephen Dillane

reciting Samuel Beckett. Some of these

affairs have succeeded more than oth­

ers, but all have yielded images that

linger in the mind.

Mitchell’s latest contribution to

White Light, “Zauberland,” has a heady

conceit. Once again, a canonical song

cycle is at the heart of the undertak­

ing: “Dichterliebe,” Schumann’s emo­

tionally fractured exploration of poetry

by Heinrich Heine. “Zauberland,”

meaning “magic land,” comes from

Heine’s “Aus alten Märchen winkt es,”

about the longing for fairy­tale realms.

In a program note, Mitchell proposes

that one such oasis is the classical tra­

dition itself, which is “trying to hold

global change at bay.” Mitchell, in col­

laboration with the playwright Mar­

tin Crimp, creates a framing narrative

about a Syrian­born opera singer who

has gone into exile in Germany. In what

appears to be an extended dream se­

quence, the singer’s memories of per­

forming Schumann mingle with trau­

matic impressions of her earlier life.

The Belgian composer Bernard Foc­

croulle supplies music for Crimp’s texts,

which flesh out the story.

The piece was designed as a vehi­

cle for the lavishly gifted young Amer­

ican soprano Julia Bullock, who has

made her name mainly in new music.

I have encountered Bullock in major

works by John Adams—“El Niño,”

“Doctor Atomic,” “Girls of the Golden

West”—and in Tyshawn Sorey’s “Perle

Noire,” a meditation on the life of Jo­

sephine Baker. The revelation of “Zau­

berland” was to hear Bullock apply her

rich­hued voice and expressive intelli­