Iestyn Davies Battles Illness to Close US Tour at Berkeley's Hertz Hall

Countertenor Iestyn Davies closed a daunting American tour at UC Berkeley's Hertz Hall on Sunday, Oct. 25, performing with harpist Oliver Wass in a Cal Performances recital — and acknowledging from the stage that illness had forced cancellations earlier on the tour.

The disclosure matters. Davies's lower register lacked its usual strength, and his clarity of tone was occasionally clouded, according to the review. Two selections were dropped from the second half to give his voice a break. The caveat, however, did not sink the evening: his singing was, on the whole, superbly expressive.

Davies is one of today's finest countertenors, with a rich, round voice — strong but not overpowering — and a deliberate approach to choosing both repertoire and collaborators. He last sang in Hertz Hall seven years ago with Fretwork, the eminent British viola da gamba ensemble, whose viols superbly complemented his voice. This time the harp partnership gave the songs unexpected novelty and interest, and it offered some excellent, seldom-heard harp solos besides.

What did the program actually contain?

The opening early-music set ranged widely:

• Claudio Monteverdi's "Laudate Dominum," which joyfully evoked a melee of instruments — trumpet, timbrel, cymbals and, fittingly, harp — each given individuality by Davies's swiftly varying tone colors and infectious enthusiasm.
• Francesco Cavalli's delicate, charming aria "Delizie contente," a taste of the mixed joy and sadness that pervaded the recital.
• Henry Purcell's unabashedly celebratory "Strike the viol."

Three Schubert songs closed the first half. Here the harp's quieter tones let Davies sing expressively without straining to match a concert grand piano — a practical argument for the unusual instrumentation that the review makes only implicitly.

How did the harp carry the modern works?

Wass's instrument came into its own in a moving solo performance of Debussy's dreamy "Clair de lune." With the harp's direct human touch on the strings, the impressionist piece sounded even more moonlit than it does on the piano.

Francis Poulenc's Le Bestiaire (The Bestiary) followed — eccentric miniatures on Guillaume Apollinaire poems, each depicting an animal not normally a poetic subject, such as a Tibetan goat and a crayfish. Wass pedaled furiously to match Poulenc's key-shifting modernism while Davies delivered the bittersweet texts with deadpan intensity.

After intermission, "Fin like a Flower" by Scottish composer Anna Meredith offered a radically contemporary soundscape. Meredith set the spare text by English playwright Philip Ridley — about a haunting, perhaps deadly oceanic encounter — with somber vocal pauses between almost every syllable, against the harp's rippling waves.

Nico Muhly's Four Traditional Songs, sung in straight ballad style, produced the evening's strangest effect. The tales — especially "The Cruel Mother," a dreadful story of infanticide — were made stranger still by the harp's intermittent interjections, which strenuously refused to adapt to the voice's four-square ballad meters.

Two virtuosic harp solos drew enthusiastic and justly earned applause in the second half: Manuel de Falla's "Spanish Dance" from La vida breve, and four movements from Benjamin Britten's Suite for Harp, with its colorful extended techniques.

How did it end?

Selections from George Frideric Handel closed the printed program. Davies delivered the comic aria "Sento amor" from Partenope with wry theatricality, then sang a gorgeous aria from the oratorio Saul, "O Lord, whose mercies numberless," in which the biblical David comforts the mad King Saul with harp and song — a programmatic fit with the evening's instrumentation that could hardly be closer.

For encores, Wass played a sassy ragtime adaptation of Mozart's "Rondo alla Turca," after which Davies joined him for a beautifully lachrymose rendition of John Dowland's most famous song, "Flow my tears."

One logistical hitch deserves note: in the first half, the low lighting made it nearly impossible to read the texts and translations. After some intermission complaints, the house manager upped the levels.

The review closes with thanks to Cal Performances for presenting performers of this musicianship and programming caliber. The so-what is straightforward: a voice under strain, judiciously managed, still produced a recital worth the seven-year wait — and the harp-and-countertenor pairing proved it can hold Monteverdi, Poulenc and Meredith in a single evening.