AN EVENING OF CABARET MUSIC (Slovenia)
Sabina Gruden, soprano
Tadej Horvat, piano
Programme:
Arnold Weinstein (1940), Cabaret Songs
Oh Close the Curtain
At the Last Lousy Moments of Love
Places to Live
Toothbrush Time
Waitin’
Amor
The Actor
George
Kurt Weill (1900–1950)
Nanna’s Lied (Bertold Brecht)
Je ne t’aime pas (Maurice Magre)
Youkali (Roger Fernay)
Worton David (1872–1940) and George Arthurs (1875–1944)
I Want to Sing in Opera
Mezzo-soprano Sabina Gruden has performed as a soloist in numerous sacred works, operas, and other vocal projects. She has appeared with the orchestra of the Slovenian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Ljubljana, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, and others. Along with her artistic colleagues, she organizes cultural events dedicated to women in the arts under the title ArsFemina. In 2022, she premiered her original performance and art installation titled “Osvobojena” (Liberated), showcasing her versatility as an artist. She is a recipient of the Prešeren Award from the Academy of Music and has won many awards in national and international competitions. In addition to opera, she enjoys performing cabaret songs because they blend light-heartedness and serious music.
Pianist Tadej Horvat has received numerous top awards at national and international competitions. As a soloist, he premiered Janez Osredkar’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in C major. He was the conductor of the revue orchestra Divertimento, for which he also created some original works and arrangements. In recent years, he has received numerous awards as an accompanist at national and international competitions. He collaborates in various chamber ensembles, most notably a piano duo with Miha Haas. He is employed at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana as an accompanist and piano teacher and has also been a professional associate with the Academy of Music for many years.
Tonight’s program will take us back about a century, to the period between the world wars. This was the golden age of cabaret, the then most popular form of entertainment with live music, dance, and performance. It took place on small stages, filled cafes, hotel halls, and nightclubs across Europe and America. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, nightclubs were where painters, writers, musicians, and other artists met up in their free time, not only for the entertainment in a relaxed setting but to experiment and co-create. They allowed their creativity to take on a more lively, humorous, or socially critical nature. This was frowned upon in theaters, museums, and similar official institutions. The first true cabaret venue– the legendary Rodolphe Salis’s Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat) opened in Paris in 1881. Followed soon after, in 1889, by Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler’s Moulin Rouge (The Red Mill). Soon many similar clubs helped establish cabaret as a established musical-theatrical style from Berlin to New York. It was a harbinger of “alternative” art, underground scene, avant-garde ideology, and thus provided a healthy counterbalance to official, academic art.
The fact that cabaret remains alive and popular today, even though its original context and function are long gone, is evidenced by the first set of songs on tonight’s program. It is a selection of colourful, characteristically “American”, and charmingly comical and playful songs from a collection titled simply Cabaret Songs. This collection is the work of the living American composer and pianist William Elden Bolcom, who also authored numerous lieds and two dozen cabaret songs. We will listen to Bolcom’s settings of nine songs by successful American poet, playwright, and librettist Arnold Weinstein, who considered himself a “theatrical poet.”
A rich and extensive repertoire has been preserved from the golden age of cabaret history’s initial decades. The one name in particular that stands out is Kurt Weill. “There are several Kurt Weills: the German Weill and the American Weill, the European and the immigrant, the classically trained student of Ferruccio Busoni and the creator of Broadway hits, the avant-garde composer of symphonies and the author of the song Mack the Knife.” With these words, Chicago music critic Phillip Huscher described the extraordinarily diverse oeuvre of the German, later American, composer, whose style covers the wide expanse between classical and jazz music. Kurt Weill was the leading composer of stage music of his time and often collaborated with his compatriot, the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht. Both were socially active and provocative, as well as humorous. One of their collaborations resulted in “Nanna’s Song”, in which a lady of the night reflects on her life, its transience, and survival in the open market of love. “I Don’t Love You” is Weill’s setting of Maurice Magre’s poem, written for cabaret singer and actress Lys Gauty, whose career flourished in the 1930s and 1940s and somewhat waned after World War II. The tango “Youkali” was created as an interlude for the play Marie Galante by French playwright and film director Jacques Deval, for which Weill contributed over half an hour of music.
The programme concludes with the charmingly entertaining song “I Want to Sing in Opera”, a joint work of three authors, George Arthurs, Worton Davide, and Jerome Kern.
George Arthurs was an English poet, playwright, and composer who achieved his greatest successes with musical comedies. He began collaborating with English poet, composer, and publisher Worton David in 1909, and a year later, the song on tonight’s program was created. This cheerful parody was also contributed to by Jerome Kern, an American composer of theatrical and popular music, whose pen penned ever green hits – jazz standards such as “Ol’ Man River”, “A Fine Romance”, “The Way You Look Tonight”, and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”. “I Want to Sing in Opera” gave voice to all the countless music and theatre lovers of the time who dreamed of world fame and success on stage. “I want to sing in opera, I have that kind of voice. I would always sing in opera if it were my choice. Even Mr. Caruso advised me to do so.” The text refers to opera tenor Enrico Caruso (1873–1921), who achieved tremendous success on European and American stages, with worldwide fame ensured by his gramophone records – he released about 250 of them between 1900 and 1920. The song, created in 1910, captivated audiences immediately. It was first recorded a year later – performed by singer Wilkie Bard. Perhaps the most memorable interpretation of this charming parody was that by legendary British actress Patricia Routledge, best known to us for her role as Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet!) in the series Keeping Up Appearances.
Tomaž Gržeta
Complimentary tickets, courtesy of Večer, can be collected an hour before the concert at the venue. Reservations are not possible, spaces are limited.
In collaboration with:
