Robert Bass, director of Collegiate Chorale, dies
New York : Robert Bass, the longtime musical director of New York City's renowned Collegiate Chorale, died Monday. He was 55.
Bass, who underwent a heart transplant last year, died at his home in Manhattan of complications from amyloidosis, a rare blood disease, said his publicist, Joshua Marcum.
Bass became music director of the Collegiate Chorale in 1980 and was instrumental in raising its profile with a wide repertoire of choral and operatic works and styles including multimedia productions.
The chorale was founded in 1941 by Robert Shaw and took its name from its first rehearsal space, the Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. It has established an national reputation built in part on a 1948 performance of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9" with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra.
Last season, he conducted the New York premiere of Leonard Bernstein's "A White House Cantata" and the U.S. premiere of Handel's "Giove in Argo" at Avery Fisher Hall. In July, he traveled to Israel with The Chorale, where he conducted a performance at the Tel Aviv Museum.
Bass also served as artistic director of the Olga Forrai Foundation, which supports the careers of young singers and conductors, and was a judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
An Interview with Robert Bass Puccini: A Composer's Journey
Le Villi and Turandot Act III,
with New York Premiere of Luciano Berio's Ending
The Collegiate Chorale
The Orchestra of St. Luke's
Robert Bass, Music Director and Conductor
The cast includes:
Aprile Millo as Anna in Le Villi and Turandot in Turandot
Franco Farina as Roberto in Le Villi and Calaf in Turandot
Hei-Kyung Hong as Liú in Turandot
Valentin Peitchinoff as Timur in Turandot
Carlo Guelfi as Guglielmo in Le Villi
Lester Lynch as Ping in Turandot
Richard Cox as Pang in Turandot
Douglas Purcell as Pong in Turandot
Monday, January 30th
Carnegie Hall, at 8 pm
Since 1980 Robert Bass has been Music Director of the world renowned Collegiate Chorale, the largest choral organization in New York. Mr. Bass has lead the Collegiate Chorale in several critically acclaimed recordings; among them: Strauss' Friedenstag and Beethoven's cantatas Der glorreiche Augenblick and Auf die Erhebung Leopold des Zwieten zur Kaiserwürde with sopranos Deborah Voigt and Elizabeth Futral, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's.
Classical Domain: When I saw that you were doing Le Villi and Turandot - plus the Berio ending I was intrigued, it's the beginning and then an ending — and then some. How did this programming idea come about?
Robert Bass: I had heard a recording of the Berio ending, and I was intrigued with it right from the start. Puccini dies in 1924, and left Turandot unfinished. Everybody knows the famous tunes in Turandot, but in the music for the rest of opera, Puccini looked much more forward than he did in much of his earlier works. Berio takes Puccini even further into the 20th century. That was interesting to me because Puccini starts very much with the Verismo composers, and I thought it would be a great idea to show the composer's journey, the “arc” in one night. Le Villi, Puccini's first opera, is about seventy minutes long. In Le Villi, there is the kernel of what would become Puccini's creative compositional style. If we do Act III of Turandot — and add the Berio's ending, we could do it in one evening. That was the idea to show that arc, from the late 1800's to what we think of as 20th century music.
In Le Villi, there are some great Verismo moments, early Verismo moments. It's influenced by Ponchielli, and Mascagni and the operas of that time. But Puccini's rhapsodic voice, his great gift of melody, it's there immediately. There are some stunning arias and ensembles in it. What it shows is his great talent for writing for the voice, the dramatic sense, the relationship between text and music, and the orchestra. The craftsmanship is there.
Berio didn't add any text that Puccini hadn't conceived, in fact he took a little out, but he gives the orchestra music of transformation, physiological transformation, and you can hear in the orchestra the more contemporary angular harmonies which signifies the physiological struggle against the emotional release.
Some people think Puccini is sentimental, I don't share that opinion, when you look at the music it is too well crafted and you see the detail and the way he heard it in his head, I don't think that craftsmanship and inspiration equals sentimentality. I think it equals honesty.
CD: Some of Puccini's earliest works are religious works and contain some beautiful vocal writing, and people might be familiar with some of those pieces, if they are not familiar with Le Villi. How does Puccini deal with the opera conventions as someone learning his craft?
RB: Puccini is not revolutionary, let's say Beethoven and Wagner were revolutionary composers. He is following the set pieces, as you said the conventions, but if you played Le Villi, and didn't tell somebody what it was and you played an aria or ensemble, they would immediately tell you: “Oh, that's Puccini”. His signature of rhapsodic soaring melody and it's emotionally honest, it's just not as highly evolved as you get in Turandot.
CD: Can you give me an example in Le Villi of the early verismo feeling, or the Puccini we might recognize from the later operas.
RB: There are a couple of numbers that really stand out to me, there is a big scene and prayer. People are familiar with the big scene and prayer in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, it's a well known moment. This moment in Le Villi equals that moment in Cavalleria. I think that moment in Cavalleria is a true Verismo archetype, so the scene and prayer in Le Villi in terms of writing for the solo, the chorus and orchestra, building that kind of climax, and evoking those colors - that's outstanding in this opera. One of the reasons I wanted to do Le Villi, was because that musical moment is outstanding, it doesn't propel the drama forward, but it's so full of amazing color and intensity, it is a great moment. One of the other great scenes in La Villi is the final moment for the tenor, the aria that he crafts for the tenor is very inspired. The truth abut rejection and regret is powerful and palpable. This is one of the few operas where the tenor role is larger than the soprano role, somewhat like Turandot. Puccini never went back to that he always made the soprano more the leading role.
CD: Let's turn to Turandot, what's wrong with the Alfano ending?
RB: I think that the Alfano ending is purely derivative, not the least bit evocative. I think it's formulaic, uninspired, it's efficient at best. It also doesn't address the final character development for Calaf or Turandot, it just puts a big slam bang ending on the piece.
So there are now three solutions. Some people stop where Puccini died, that's what Toscanini did. Currently there is a production in Dresden, they just stop, and end the opera where Toscanini did. There's the Alfano ending, and the Berio ending. With the Berio ending the interesting thing is that he wanted to describe, I think, the physiological development of Turandot and Calaf at the end a little more internally and psychologically.
The direct honesty of Puccini is harder for a lot of the public today. The public today craves a different emotion expression. It's also hard to find singers who are willing to commit to that kind of honesty and truth.
Berio didn't add any text that Puccini hadn't conceived, in fact he took a little out, but he gives the orchestra music of transformation, physiological transformation, and you can hear in the orchestra the more contemporary angular harmonies which signifies the physiological struggle against the emotional release. If Turandot will let go of her past, I hate to use contemporary terms, but we all have our emotional baggage, and the emotional baggage for Turandot is history. Her ancestors, her not wanting to be subject to vulnerability, her murderous side. Berio instead of glorifying that, makes it angular, and sharp. I'll have to give you a specific example, when Turandot says: “It's over, it's over”, when Calaf tells Turandot who he is, she is released from her past. You'll hear in the orchestra, the pain that all that caused her. You've never heard it quite that way before. The music turns to the honest warm sound that Puccini evoked. Not unlike Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, where a lot of the orchestra leads you through the emotional or psychological transcendence.
CD: I confess I'm one of those people who turns Turandot off when the Alfano ending starts, there is a dramatic reason for it and a musical one. The musical problem is obvious, Alfano's music is pedestrian after hearing Puccini's world. Dramatically the opera never resolves the position of Turandot, is this something that Berio addresses?
RB: I don't think he attempts to. This is my impression from studying the music, I don't think he attempts to give it dramatic thrust. I think he attempts to pull it together psychologically, to help it make sense to us through the orchestral writing. He has not created any further glorious striking vocal moments.
Alfano's choice was to end loud, Berio's choice is to end slower, quieter and in a kind of a reflective mode. You don't have the sense of Turandot and Calaf ridding off into the sunset, or having an heroic resolution. You get the sense of transcendency from what has happened in the past, to get beyond Liú's death. That I think he achieves, but he doesn't achieve it through rhapsodic melody, that's the point people should understand.
CD: Is the shift abrupt?
RB: In some places it's rather startling. Everybody knows the beautiful melody in the tenor aria “Nessun dorma”, what Berio will do is take that and re-harmonize it, so it begins to suggest more than the heroic passion and intensity of Calaf. He will suggest the psychological underpinnings by re-harmonizing it. He takes Puccini's tunes, re-harmonized, which suggests more physiological or emotional complexity.
CD: Is this Berio, or does it come from Puccini's modernism?
RB: If you listen to the music that precedes “Nessun dorma” in the beginning of Act III, some of the most “modern” sounding in the whole opera - that's where Berio starts. You are at sea harmonically, you don't know exactly where you are, as opposed to “Nessun dorma” which has harmonies and the soaring melody we're all familiar with. “Nessun dorma” itself emerges as a new expression, it is no longer Calaf's intense passion for Turandot, you will hear it as the key to Turandot's emotional release, you will hear it as the Verismo emotional truth.
CD: Can you say a little more about Puccini's modernism, what is modern about Turandot?
RB: There is much more dissonance, just plain old dissonance it's rhapsodic and beautiful, but when you sit down and look at it, there's more chromatic dissonance in Turandot, than in any of his earlier operas. People think of this as Asian, he uses the pentatonic scale, he meshes it with dissonance, the combination of those two things I think people dismiss a little too easily, “Oh those are Asian harmonies”. There not really Asian harmonies, there is a pentatonic scale in there, but underlying that is chromatic dissonance. I think in all of the music in Act III where they talk about torturing Liú, Puccini uses much more dissonance and odd chromaticism, for choir and orchestra. You go past it in the opera house, it goes by quickly, but when you sit down and look at the score, it's striking.
As I listen to Turandot, there are two things that strike me right away that are not “Italian” in this piece, the influence of Strauss, the dissonance of Salome and Electra, and also the impressionist colors of Debussy and Ravel. In no way is Puccini imitating. If you find the harmonic language of Salome and Electra gripping, that's in Turandot. If you know the lush chromaticism of Debussy and Ravel, that's in this piece as well, but it's all in Puccini's voice. He's honest about his own voice.
CD: He's not just trying on different aspects of modernism...
RB: In my opinion, as a musician he's totally cognizant of the other big voices in music of the turn of the century. He incorporates them in his honest truthful way, which is what the Verismo style is... and I think it's gone out of fashion today, we want emotional complexity, and ambiguity, people are a little more comfortable with that. Like, let's say the emotional complexity of Salome and Electra, or theambiguity in Sondheim, or Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande.
The direct honesty of Puccini is harder for a lot of the public today. The public today craves a different emotional expression. It's also hard to find singers who are willing to commit to that kind of honesty and truth.
CD: It's odd in a sense, because in the pop music world, it's all about passion. Also where Puccini, not so oddly, is very popular.
RB: Right, that's right, but I think there's something about classical music and people thinking that it needs to be complex. Today you should have both. I think you can have great rewards from Salome, or Sondheim and the Sound of Music. I think that Puccini is given a bum wrap for the fact that it's not as physiologically probing as some of the more forward looking composers of the day were. It's like Arthur Miller in Death of a Salesman, heavily criticized because the emotion seemed too vivid and straight forward.
One of the things about this concert, if you don't know Le Villi, you are going to get the Puccini you know and love. and up until where Berio starts you're going to get the Turandot you know and love. Then Berio is going to suggest a resolution, in a contemporary voice, not in Puccini's voice, using contemporary harmonies.
CD: Audiences still love Puccini, and I am looking forward to the hearing the Composer's Journey. Thank you Mr. Bass.
Robert Bass has been Music Director of the world renowned Collegiate Chorale since 1980 and celebrated his 25th anniversary in the 2004-05 season. Mr. Bass is the sixth Music Director in The Chorale's 63-year history, and his tenure follows the distinguished leadership of his predecessors which include Richard Westenburg and legendary founder Robert Shaw. The 2004-05 season also marked the 25th anniversary of Mr. Bass' conducting debut in Carnegie Hall, where he has since conducted a wide range of repertoire including choral works and commissions. He has introduced annual opera-in-concert performances which have become a highlight of each Carnegie Hall and New York concert season. Two of his performances at Carnegie Hall with The Chorale have since become critically acclaimed recordings: the New York premiere of Strauss' Friedenstag (KOCH, 1991) which reached the top 25 on classical Billboard charts; and Beethoven's cantatas Der glorreiche Augenblick and Auf die Erhebung Leopold des Zwieten zur Kaiserwürde with sopranos Deborah Voigt and Elizabeth Futral, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's (KOCH, 1994). Singers who made their Carnegie Hall debuts under Mr. Bass' baton include David Daniels, Lauren Flanigan, Maria Guleghina and Salvatore Licitra.
In recent years Mr. Bass has led The Collegiate Chorale to unprecedented growth both institutionally and artistically. He has solidified The Chorale's relationship with The Orchestra of St. Luke's, which now appears in all Carnegie Hall concerts. Mr. Bass founded The Collegiate Chorale Singers, a chamber group of professional choral singers which performs an annual concert dedicated to American music. In addition, he combines the professional choral singers with the non-professional choral singers in the 150-voice Collegiate Chorale. He instituted The Chorale's successful Side-by-Side education program, which allows talented high school singers to join The Chorale in a Carnegie Hall concert. In the summer of 2001, The Chorale made its first European tour with Mr. Bass, performing in Prague and Vienna. That same summer NPR's World of Opera broadcast The Chorale's Carnegie Hall performance of Verdi's Macbeth, and followed up the next year with their performance of Weber's Oberon. In 2005, The Collegiate Chorale and Robert Bass were invited by James Levine to perform the Verdi Requiem at the prestigious Verbier Festival in Switzerland. Mr. Bass skillfully effected the transition from a volunteer membership board to a professional board under whose leadership The Chorale's budget now exceeds that of any choral group of its kind in New York and is in fact one of the largest of any chorus in the nation.
Mr. Bass was one of the conductors of the Richard Tucker Foundation's Fifteenth Gala Concert at Avery Fisher Hall (televised nationally on PBS) conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Renée Fleming. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the New York City Opera Company, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Nebraska Chamber Orchestra, and the Concert Association of Greater Miami. At Carnegie Hall, Mr. Bass led performances of Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, the Verdi Requiem, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Berlioz Requiem, Rossini's Stabat Mater, theMozart Requiem, the Faur Requiem, Bach's Mass in B Minor, and Handel's Messiah, among others. Mr. Bass was privileged to appear with Marian Anderson in a series of benefit performances for the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Mr. Bass is a frequent judge of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and is the Artistic Director of the Olga Forrai Foundation which supports the careers of young singers and young conductors.
photo by Steve J. ShermanRobert Bass, beloved music director of the Collegiate Chorale for 28 years, passed away yesterday at his home in Manhattan. His death was caused by complications resulting from his on-going battle with Amyloidosis, a disease which affects around eight people in a million.
Bob was a significant force in the musical life of New York and a friend to the WNYC as an unfailingly charming and articulate guest. I was privileged not only to interview him on a number of occasions, but also to sing for him in several standout performances with the Collegiate Chorale in Carnegie Hall. We who knew and worked with Bob have lost a dear friend and a tireless champion for the cause of great music-making. To honor his memory this evening, WNYC’s Evening Music will feature his excellent recording of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Cantata “The Glorious Moment,” with the Collegiate Chorale, the Orchestra of St. Lukes, and soloists Deborah Voigt, Elizabeth Futral, Gregory Cross and Jan Opalach.
A funeral service will be held on Thursday, August 28 at 5:30 p.m. at the Riverside Memorial Chapel, 180 West 76 Street (Amsterdam Avenue). In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to the Amyloidosis Foundation in honor of Robert Bass.
http://www.amyloidosisresearchfoundation.org/donations/index.html
— George Preston, WNYC Music Director
Listen to Robert Bass in an appearance during WNYC’s 2006 Beethoven Festival: The Spirit is Willing: Beethoven’s Vocal Music
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