An Afternoon To Remember

So anyway...

On March 1st, 1998, I went up to Berkeley to see the lovely Mr. Bostridge live. After more than a year's devoted fanhood, my dream of hearing the man who brought Die Schöne Müllerin to life for me was finally fulfilled.

So what did he sing?

The order was changed a little bit from the printed programme (the Liederkreis came after the individual songs instead of before), and I haven't got the booklet with me at the moment, so I'm sort of reconstructing from memory...

    First half
      Individual Songs
    1. Belsazar
    2. Dein Angesicht
    3. Lehn' Deine Wang'
    4. Es leuchtet meine Liebe
    5. Mein Wagen rollet langsam
  1. Liederkreis, op. 24
~~~Intermission~~~
    Second half
  1. Dichterliebe, op. 48
      Encores
    1. "a gypsy song by Schumann"
    2. Mondnacht

My impression of the whole thing

before this recital, I'd not been exposed to much Schumann at all, besides the occasional piano piece, so I didn't know at all what to expect. The pieces were very lovely indeed, and of course the singing was sublime (no, I'm not getting paid to write this!). I heard a rather more baritonal quality in his voice than I had heard before; the beautiful boy who sang of the miller maid has grown up a bit - but just a bit! The voice is still as angelic as before. On a slightly different note (hey, we have to keep this report just a bit chick-oriented), since there was stage seating behind the piano, when he bowed to them we got a bit of a bum-watch. Hey, I'm not complaining...! Anyway, when he announced his first encore, his speaking voice was a bit too soft, so he had to raise his voice extra loud to be heard. I thought it very endearing, kind of like a school boy giving his first speech.

And afterwards...

After the recital there was a CD-signing/schmooze-a-rama at a lovely little record shop/coffee shop called "The Musical Offering". There I finally got to meet Ian Bostridge, and I got him to sign this poster they were giving out. I must admit, I was completely hyperventilating, I was so excited and thrilled. He signed it "To Natalie, best wishes from Ian Bostridge", and he even asked if he'd spelled it correctly. I stammered something about how so many spell my name with an h after the t, and how I don't (since he had it right anyway it didn't matter). He muttered something about "Natalia", which is a name a very chosen few call me - I'm surprised I didn't faint. Sadly, they were all out of the new Schumann CD by the time I got to the shop, so that had to wait until I went to Toronto the following week. By the way, the photo at the top of the page was taken at said signing!!

This page is maintained by Natalie Mayer.
Back to The Bostridge Page. Latest update: April 8, 1998, 20:25 PDT