Opera Preview: TSO premieres Paulus songs

The world premiere of Stephen Paulus’ “Dylan Thomas Songs” was only one of the highlights of Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s “Strauss, Liszt and Poetry” Classics Concert last Thursday night. Richard Strauss was right up there.

Benefactor Dr. Helen Schaefer chose two of the Thomas poems — “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and “And Death Shall Have No Dominion.”

Composer Stephen Paulus added “This Side of the Truth” to complete the cycle examining death.

Elizabeth Futral brought her magnificent soprano to the piece, demonstrating why her appearances at the Lyric and Metropolitan operas have been so well reviewed. Futral’s upper range soared through both Strauss’ “Four Last Songs” and the Dylan Thomas settings, but her equally beautiful lower chest tones were overpowered by the cellos and woodwinds, at times making Futral more an ensemble member than a soloist.

In the case of orchestra size and dynamics for both song groups, smaller and softer would have been better.

Conductor George Hanson opened the concert with Verdi’s bombastic overture to the opera “La forza del destino.” It was pure Hanson — loud, taken initially at break-neck speed and clearly intended to get things rolling dramatically. It did.

Strauss composed “Vier Letzte Lieder” — the Four Last Songs — very late in his life while he was in Switzerland avoiding the WWII denazification investigations and, obviously, contemplating the sad turns of German history and his own life as well as the approach of death. He returned to his Fatherland only one year before he died. The songs are dark but not hopeless, and they provide beautiful and soaring melodies for the soprano.

Similarly, composer Paulus sees his works as “somewhat uplifting.”

He says “... (they) offer three novel insights into the concept of death by the same poet.” The songs, new and therefore nearly unheard before, will take more listening for full realization, understanding and appreciation of their construction. The poetry that inspires them is well-known, but to understand some of the crescendos which, on first hearing, seem unrelated to the text, will take additional attention and study. What seemed at times like artifice will be better understood with more familiarity, one feels confident. Hopefully, Futral and others will record them, perhaps even with TSO. They are certainly worthy.

The concert concluded with Liszt’s “Les Pr/ludes,” something those of us “of a certain age” will forever associate with “The Lone Ranger” of old-time radio. But, after all, that was in our youth, and those were pretty good days, Kimosabi.

Donald.behnke@yahoo.com