Lauren Sims
soprano
Brian Davis, piano
Graduate Voice Recital
Saturday, March 24, 2007
5:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Let the Bright Seraphim from Samson George Frideric Handel
(1685-1759)
Dormendo stai Stefano Donaudy
Date abbiento al mio dolore (1879-1925)
Se vuoi ch’io mora, amor, morrò
Tempo è alfin di muover guerra
Quatre chansons de jeunesse Claude Debussy
Pantomime (1862-1918)
Clair de lune
Pierrot
Apparition
Intermission
Mein Herr Marquis from Die Fledermaus Johann Strauss
(1825-1899)
Ach Lieb, ich muss nun scheiden Richard Strauss
Ich Schwebe (1864-1949)
Schön sind, doch kalt
Kling!
Songs about Spring Dominick Argento
Who knows if the moon’s a balloon (b. 1927)
Spring is like a perhaps hand
in Just-spring
in Spring comes
when faces called flowers float out of the ground
In partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for the
Master of Music in Performance
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
George Frideric Handel:
Let the Bright Seraphim
Let the bright Seraphim in burning row,
their loud, uplifted Angel trumpets blow.
Let the Cherubic host, in tuneful choirs,
touch their immortal harps with golden wires.
Stefano Donaudy:
Texts by Alberto Donaudy
Dormendo stai
Dormendo stai con le braccia inarcate,
quasi una rosa in desio de sbocciar;
e non ascolti le liete brigate
che van cantando le lor maggiolate…
Niuna parola ti dice questo sospirar
di mia viola?
(Refrain)
Tempo è venuto di goder maggio!
Questo è il messaggio d’ogni liuto…
Ah! Odi il mio canto?
Che fai dunque lì ancor ascosa?
Fresca e odorosa, t’aspetta amor!
Se vieni meco per esta contrada,
diran che accanto sbocciato m’è un fior
e ch’io l’adduco così per istrada
a bere un sorso di fresca rugiada,
mentre i garzoni ci sequiranno
sospirando lor canzoni.
(Refrain)
Date abbiento al mio dolore
Date abbiento al mio dolore,
care luci disdegnose,
poi che un vostro sguardo pose
dolci pene nel mio cuore.
Per le pene dell’amore
voi sapete, luci care,
ciò che val d’essere avare
d’un sol sguardo adulatore.
Date abbiento al mio dolore!
Se vuoi ch’io mora, amor, morrò
Se vuoi ch’io mora, amor, morrò;
se vuoi ch’io fugga, fuggirò;
se vuoi ch’io pianga,
piangerò le lacrime più amare;
ma lascia che io baci le tue labbra
dolci e tenere a baciare!
You are sleeping
You are sleeping with your arms curved,
like a rose desiring to bloom;
and you do not hear the happy crowds
who are singing their May songs…
Does this breath of my violet not
speak any word to you?
(Refrain)
The time has come to enjoy May!
This is the message of every lute…
Ah! Do you hear my singing?
What are you doing there then, still hidden?
Fresh and fragrant, love awaits you!
If you come with me through the countryside,
people will say that beside me a flower blooms
and that I am leading it through the streets
to drink a sip of fresh dew,
while the young men follow us
sighing their songs.
(Refrain)
Give aid to my pain
Give aid to my pain,
dear disdainful eyes,
since a glance of yours put
sweet pains in my heart.
For the pains of love
you know, dear eyes,
what it is worth to deny
a single adoring glance.
Give aid to my pain!
If you want me to die, love, I will die
If you want me to die, love, I will die;
if you want me to flee, I will flee;
if you want me to cry,
I will weep the most bitter tears;
but let me kiss your lips
sweet and tender for kissing!
Mi vuoi dannar? Mi dannerò;
vuoi darmi l’ali? Volerò;
mi vuoi tradir?
doventerò marito da ingannare;
ma lascia che io baci le tue labbra
dolci e tenere a baciare!
Tempo è alfin di muover guerra
Tempo è alfin di muover guerra
contro chi più ci tiranna,
più c’illude e più c’inganna,
or fedele, or traditore…
Se un nemico abbiamo in terra, è l’Amor!
Basta avere un usbergo sul cuore:
quello è il nostro tallone d’Achille…
Siam, del resto, più di mille,
tutti pieni di vigore;
sicchè certo l’Arcadore questa volta perirà!
Mai crociata come questa fu più giusta,
più fatale se salvarci può dal male,
onde tutti noi soffriamo…
Su, a cavallo! Lancia in resta!
E voliam!
Ecco adesso in agguato sostiamo:
giunge Amore d’intorno saettando…
Tutti fermi!
Solo quando egli è giunto noi sortiamo
e prigion lo dichiariamo…
Ahi, che invece me ferì!
Claude Debussy:
Quatre chansons de jeunesse
Pantomime
Text by Paul Verlaine
Pierrot qui n’a rien d’un Clitandre
Vide un flacon sans plus attendre
Et, pratique, entame un pâté
Cassandre, au fond de l’avenue,
Verse une larme méconnue
Sur son neveu déshérité
Ce faquin d’Arlequin combine
L’enlèvement de Colombine
Et pirouette quatre fois
Colombine rêve, surprise
De sentir un coeur dans la brise
Et d’entendre en son coeur des voix
Clair de lune
Text by Paul Verlaine
Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques
You want to drive me mad? I will go mad;
you want to give me wings? I will fly;
you want to betray me?
I will become a husband to be deceived;
but let me kiss your lips
sweet and tender for kissing!
It is time, finally, to make war
It is time, finally, to make war
against the one who still tyrannizes us,
still deludes us, and still deceives us,
now faithful, now traitorous…
If we have an enemy on earth, it is Love!
It is enough to have a shield upon our hearts:
that is our Achilles’ heel…
We are, after all, more than a thousand,
all full of vigor,
so that surely the archer, this time, will perish!
Never was crusading like this more just,
more inevitable if it can save us from the hurt
wherefrom we are all suffering…
Onward, on horseback! Spear in readiness!
And let’s fly!
Here, now, we wait in ambush:
Cupid approaches, shooting arrows around…
Everyone keep back!
Only when he has arrived do we come out
and declare him prisoner…
Alas: instead, he wounded me!
Four Songs of Youth
Pantomime
Pierrot who is nothing like Clitandre
Empties a flask without delay,
And, practical, cuts into a pâté.
Cassandre, at the end of the avenue,
Sheds a solitary tear
For his disinherited nephew.
Harlequin, that scoundrel, plots
The abduction of Columbine
And pirouettes four times.
Columbine dreams, surprised
To feel a heart in the breeze
And to hear voices in her heart.
Moonlight
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Charmed by masquers and bergamasquers,
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.
Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune
Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune
Au calme clair de lune triste et beau
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau
Les grands jets d’eau sveltes parmi les
marbres.
Au calme clair de lune triste et beau.
Pierrot
Text by Théodore de Banville
Le bon pierrot que la foule contemple
Ayant fini les noces d’Arlequin
Suit en songeant le boulevard du temple.
Une fillette au souple casaquin
En vain l’agace de son oeil coquin
Et cependant mystérieuse et lisse
Faisant de lui sa plus chère délice
La blanche lune aux cornes de taureau
Jette un regard de son oeil en coulisse
A son ami Jean Gaspard Debureau.
Apparition
Text by Stéphane Mallarmé
La lune s’attristait. Des séraphins en pleurs
Rêvant, l’archet aux doigts, dans le calme des
fleurs
Vaporeuses, tiraient de mourantes violes
De blancs sanglots glissant sur l’azur des
corolles.
-C’était le jour béni de ton premier baiser.
Ma songerie aimant à me martyriser
S’enivrait savamment du parfum de tristesse
Que même sans regret et sans déboire laisse
La cueillaison d’un Rêve au coeur qui l’a
cueilli.
J’errais donc, l’oeil rivé sur le pavé vieilli
Quand avec du soleil aux cheveux, dans la rue
Et dans le soir, Tu m’es en riant apparue
Et j’ai cru voir la fée au chapeau de clarté
Qui jadis sur mes beaux sommeils d’enfant
gâté
Passait, laissant toujours de ses mains mal
fermées.
Neiger de blancs bouquets d’étoiles
parfumées.
Even while they sing in the minor mode
Of love triumphant and life opportune,
They do not seem to believe in their felicity
And their songs blend with the moonlight,
With the calm moonlight, sad and beautiful,
That makes the birds dream in the trees
And the fountains sob with ecstasy,
The tall slender fountains among the marbles,
In the calm moonlight, sad and beautiful.
Pierrot
Good Pierrot, gazed at by the crowd,
Being done with Harlequin’s wedding,
Walks dreamily along the Boulevard du
Temple.
A young girl in a soft blouse
Vainly teases him with her roguish eye;
And meanwhile, mysterious and calm,
Taking in him greatest delight,
The white moon with horns like a bull
Cast a sidelong glance
At her friend Jean Gaspard Debureau.
Apparition
The moon was saddening. Seraphim in tears,
Dreaming, bow in hand, in the calm of flowers
Vaporous, were drawing from dying viols
White sobs that glided over the blue corollas.
-It was the blessed day of your first kiss.
My fantasy that loves to torment me
Knowingly reveled in the scent of sadness
Which, even without regret and
disappointment,
The gathering of a Dream leaves in the heart
that has gathered it.
Thus I wandered, my eyes fixed on the worn
pavement,
When with sun in your hair, in the street
And in the evening, laughing, you appeared to
me
And I thought I saw the fairy with her luminous
cap
Who once through the lovely sleeps of my
spoilt childhood
Passed, letting from her half-closed hands
always
Snow white bouquets of perfumed stars.
Johann Strauss:
Mein Herr Marquis
Libretto by Carl Haffner and Richard Genée
Mein Herr Marquis, ein Mann wie Sie
sollt’ besser das versteh’n!
Darum rate ich,
ja genauer sich die Leute anzuseh’n!
Die Hand ist doch wohl gar zu fein, ah,
dies Füsschen so zierlich und klein, ah.
Die Sprache, die ich führe,
die Taille, die Tournüre,
dergleichen finden Sie bei einer Zofe nie!
Gestehen müssen Sie fürwahr:
sehr komisch dieser Irrtum war.
(Refrain)
Ja, sehr komisch, ha ha ha,
ist die Sache, ha ha ha!
Drum verzeih’n Sie, ha ha ha,
wenn ich lache, ha ha ha…!
Ach, sehr komisch, Herr Marquis, sind Sie!
Mit dem Profil im griech’schen Stil
beschenkte mich Natur.
Wenn nicht dies Gesicht
schon genügend spricht,
so seh’n Sie die Figur!
Schau’n durch die Lorgnette Sie dann, ah,
sich diese Toilette nur an, ah.
Mir scheinet wohl, die Liebe
macht Ihre Augen trübe;
Der schönen Zofe Bild
hat ganz Ihr Herz erfüllt!
Nun sehen Sie sie überall;
sehr komisch ist fürwahr der Fall.
(Refrain)
Richard Strauss:
Ach Lieb, ich muss nun scheiden
Text by Felix Dahn
Ach Lieb, ich muss nun scheiden,
Gehn über Berg und Tal,
Die Erlen und die Weiden,
Die weinen allzumal.
Sie sahn so oft uns wandern
Zusammen an Baches Rand;
Das Eine ohn’ den Andern,
Geht über ihren Verstand.
Die Erlen und die Weiden
Vor Schmerz in Tränen stehn,
Nun denket, wie uns Beiden
Erst muss zu Herzen gehn.
My lord Marquis
My lord marquis, a man like you
should understand this better!
Therefore I advise you
to look at people more closely!
My hand is indeed much too delicate, ah
this little foot so graceful and tiny, ah.
The language that I speak,
my waistline, my shape-the
likes of which you’ll never find in a
chambermaid!
You must truly admit:
this mistake was very funny.
Yes, very funny, ha ha ha,
is the thing, ha ha ha!
Therefore forgive me, ha ha ha,
if I laugh, ha ha ha…!
Oh my, very funny, lord marquis, you are!
With a profile in the Grecian style
nature has endowed me.
If this face doesn’t
already say enough,
then observe my figure!
Then just gaze through your lorgnette, ah,
at this party dress, ah.
It certainly seems to me that love
is making your eyes blurry;
the image of a pretty chambermaid
has completely filled your heart!
Now you see her everywhere;
very funny, indeed, is the situation.
(Refrain)
Ah, Love, I must now leave
Ah, love, I must now leave,
To wander over hill and dale;
The alder trees and willows
Are weeping, every one.
They have so often seen us strolling
Together on the banks of the stream;
The one without the other,
Goes beyond their understanding.
The alder trees and willows
Are weeping sorrowfully,
Imagine then, how we two
Feel in our hearts.
Ich schwebe
Text by Karl Henckell
Ich schwebe wie auf Engelsschwingen,
Die Erde kaum berührt mein Fuss,
In meinen Ohren hör’ ich’s klingen
Wie der Geliebten Scheidegruss.
Das tönt so lieblich, mild und leise,
Das spricht so zage, zart und rein,
Leicht lullt die nachgeklung’ne Weise
In wonneschweren Traum mich ein.
Mein schimmernd’ Aug’, indess mich füllen
Die süssesten der Melodien,
Sieht ohne Falten, ohne Hüllen,
Mein lächelnd Lieb vorüberziehn.
Schön sind, doch kalt
Text by A. F. von Schack
Schön sind, doch kalt die Himmelssterne,
Die Gaben karg, die sie verleih’n;
Für einen deiner Blicke gerne
Hin geb’ ich ihren goldnen Schein.
Getrennt, so dass wir ewig darben!
Nur führen sie im Jahreslauf
Den Herbst mit seinen Ährengarben,
Des Frühlings Blütenpracht herauf;
Doch deine Augen, o, der Segen
Des ganzen Jahres quillt überreich
Aus ihnen stets als milder Regen,
Die Blüte und Frucht zugleich.
Kling!
Text by Karl Henckell
Meine Seele gibt reinen Ton,
Und ich wähnte die Arme
Von dem wütenden Harme
Wilder Zeiten zerrissen schon.
Sing, meine Seele den Beichtgesang
Wiedergewonnener Fülle!
Hebe vom Herzen die Hülle!
Heil dir, geläuterter Innenklang!
Kling, meine Seele, kling dein Leben,
Kling, quellendes, frisches Gebild.
Blühendes hat sich begeben
Auf dem verdorrten Gefild.
Kling, meine Seele, kling.
Dominick Argento:
Songs about Spring
Texts by e. e. cummings
who knows if the moon’s a balloon?
who knows if the moon’s
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
I float
I float as if on angel’s wings,
My feet barely touch the ground,
I hear a sound in my ears
Like the farewell of my beloved.
It sounds so sweet, so soft and gentle,
It speaks so shy, tender and clear,
The echo of its melody lulls me
To sleep in an enraptured dream.
My gleaming eye, while I am filled
With the sweetest of melodies,
Sees, without disguise of robes and veils,
My smiling love pass by.
Beautiful, yet cold
Beautiful, yet cold, are the stars of heaven,
The gifts which they bestow are scant;
For one of your glances, gladly
Would I give up their golden glow.
Parted, and so we are eternally longing.
Now they bring forth, in the course of the year,
The autumn, with its glorious raiments,
The spring, with its blossoming splendor;
But your eyes, oh, the blessing
Of the entire year flows generously
From them, as the gentle rain
Brings forth the flowers and fruits alike.
Resound!
My soul utters a pure sound,
While I imagined the poor one
To be torn by the sorrows
Of those turbulent times.
Sing, my soul the song of confession
Of regained fulfillment!
Lift the veil from your heart!
Hail to thee, resounding, innermost tone!
Sing my soul, sing of your life,
Sing, arising new image.
New bloom has appeared
On the dry plain,
Sing my soul, sing.
in the sky-filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we’d go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody’s ever visited,where
always
it’s
Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves
Spring is like a perhaps hand
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and
without breaking anything.
in Just-spring
in Just-spring
when the world is mud-luscious
the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
in Spring comes
in
Spring comes(no-one
asks his name)
a mender
of things
with eager
fingers(with
patient
eyes)re
-new-ing
remaking what
other
-wise we should
have
thrown a-way(
and whose
brook
-bright flower-soft
bird
-quick voice loves
children
and sunlight and
mountains)in april(but
if he should
Smile)comes
nobody’ll know
when faces called flowers float out of the ground
when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-but
keeping is downward and doubting and never
-it’s april(yes,april;my darling)it’s spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)
when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving-but
keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
-alive;we’re alive,dear:it’s(kiss me now)spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing,the mountains)
when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living-but
keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
-it’s spring(all our night becomes day)o,it’s spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)
