Composer David Lang, who served on the committee that awarded Kendrick Lamar’s album Damn a Pulitzer Prize earlier this week, won his own Pulitzer in 2008 for the vocal composition The Little Match Girl Passion. Commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation and the Perth Theater and Concert Hall, it was premiered in October 2007 by Theatre of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier. A sublime recording of the work by the same ensemble was released in 2009 by Harmonia Mundi. The piece was written for four vocalists and percussion, but a choral version by the Los Angeles Master Chorale came out in 2016 on Cantaloupe Records.
The deftly choreographed production also involves ten silent performers: six actors, a butcher, and three people credited as “grandmothers.” The immersive staging places the spectators in clusters toward the four corners of the main performance area, leaving room for fleeting bursts of activity to occur behind them. Justin Hayford wrote a review for this week’s paper, so I’ll direct you there for more—I’m no theater critic, but I agree that the proliferation of stage business and visuals is at times overwhelming. The production feels as much like an installation as it does a play or a musical, especially because the actions of the actors don’t directly illustrate the narrative suggested by the singers (who also act).
Aisha Orazbayeva, Outside (Nonclassical)
Tomasz Stanko, TWET (Polskie Nagrania)
Giuliano d’Angiolini, Cantilena (Another Timbre)
Moses Sumney, Aromanticism (Jagjaguwar)
Eero Koivistoinen Quartet, Labyrinth (Love)
