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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Multicolored Dawn
Among opera singers, Dawn Upshaw is the un-diva. While other singers want you to stand back and be overwhelmed, the Tennessee-born soprano prefers to gently illuminate the music and show you how interesting it is, although her crystalline, iridescent voice can achieve unearthly beauty.
Her insatiable intellectual curiosity has led her to carve out the most unorthodox career of any major opera star — in fact, it’s been said that she only started out in opera so she could cross over into other types of music. She has recorded Mozart and Schubert with distinction, but her heart is in more esoteric material. She’s fond of strange languages: Russian, Portuguese, Auvergnois. She achieves dazzling results in the overlooked French repertoire. She has a sure hand with American modernists (her recording of Copland’s Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson is blindingly intense), but she also seeks out contemporary composers from John Harbison (playing Daisy Buchanan in his opera version of The Great Gatsby) to Joe Jackson (on Heaven & Hell). She sings credibly in a jazz/pop style, and she’s even better with Broadway show tunes.
The many facets of her art can be heard at her Cliburn Concerts recital this week. She sings songs by 16th-century English composer John Dowland, as well as by Debussy, Barber, and Vernon Duke — her version of Duke’s “April in Paris” is spine-tingling. She likes to conclude her programs with songs by Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and other luminaries of the 1960s, and will do so here.
Dawn Upshaw sings at 8pm Wed at Bass Performance Hall, 555 Commerce St, FW. Tickets are $10-75. Call 817-335-9000.
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