I’m still flying after tonight’s recital with soprano (and dear friend) Christine Goerke. The Tucson Desert Song Festival does everything right: beautiful venues and pianos, great support staff, committed and enthusiastic audience. They made it easy for us to relax and rock the house. The opera girl in me loved that Christine didn’t scale anything down – it was her voice and her energy all the way, sometimes brought to a whisper and sometimes unleashed like a gale. The vocal range of the program, incidentally, was from F below middle C to the C two octaves above. Just like the Färberin in Die Frau ohne Schatten! The crowd was wild for her, and it was a very satisfying night. Very special to everyone was the moment Christine dedicated Gershwin’s “My Man’s Gone Now” to the memory of DeShon Marcelous, a former Houston Grand Opera chorister, University of Arizona student, and dear friend. If there were dry eyes in the house, none of them were located on stage.
Now to sleep: early flight tomorrow, with the next recital on deck.