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Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Tuning her acoustic guitar onstage at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland Friday night, Aimee Mann confessed to being bad at between-song banter.

She debated aloud whether to share the story behind "You Could Make a Killing," but finally decided to reveal that the melancholic ballad sprang from a brief, distant crush she had on Oasis' Noel Gallagher. She followed the funny, droll tale with a jawdropping rendition of the tune, Mann's vocal lines mingling with her chords and guitarist Michael Lockwood's biting leads.

Such was the nature of Mann's richly textured performance at the WYEP Holiday Concert. There were amusing asides, such as tales about the band members being a little too influenced by their viewing of the film "Rock Star" on the tour bus, that gave the show homey touches.

These added welcome brightness to a show heavy with moody, theatrical lighting and a well-paced set list of stunning, but largely heartrending, songs.

Mann's musical choices included six tracks from her 1995 disc "I'm With Stupid," including a hushed reworking of "It's Not Safe" and a lengthy, churning "Long Shot."

She also plucked out "4th of July" from her solo debut, added grit and muscle to "Calling It Quits" from "Bachelor No. 2" and landed the vocal leaps of the "Magnolia" soundtrack song "Wise Up" with aplomb. "This Is How It Goes," from Mann's latest album "Lost in Space," was another standout as she sang with resignation about a pop marketplace that is "all about drugs ... all about shame."

Maia Sharp opened the show in slightly more upbeat fashion, even noting that she wanted to begin with "something hopeful" by playing "You Can't Lose Them All."

Alternating between guitar, keyboards and soprano sax, Sharp displayed winning song craft, and strong arranging skills that best came together on the thoughtful "Long Way Home."

John Young, free-lance music critic

"The Clemency of Tito"

The opera seria genre Mozart revisited for his last opera, "La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Tito)," was already old-fashioned in his time.

Karen McIntyre, who directed the Pittsburgh Opera Center production of the opera Friday evening, updated the stodgy libretto into a thoroughly compelling theatrical experience.

It could have been 21st-century politics and vengeance that drove these schemers to devise a clumsy assassination attempt on their leader, though his forgiveness would be unlikely today.

The company's training program, headed by Opera artistic director Christopher Hahn, presented Mozart's last opera in Carnegie Mellon University's lovely Kresge Theater. The minuscule space, along with economic considerations, dictated a scrappy, one-on-a-part orchestra led from a harpsichord by Michael Borowitz (who accompanied the recitatives with crispness and imagination).

For the most part, the characters express themselves in a string of gorgeous bravura arias, which the aspiring singers managed with widely varying degrees of talent and accomplishment.

Tenor Javier Abreu portrayed the title figure with sincerity and conviction, though his voice is slight even for this tiny hall. Carolyn Betty as the unlikable Vitellia showed a genuine operatic quality in her plumy sound -- plus a big personality to match -- enough to compensate for her raw vocal technique.

Most polished was Karin Caspi in the trouser role of Sesto, who (inexplicably) follows the vicious heroine with blind adoration. Taking on another male role originally designed for castrato was Holly Harrison, a recent winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council's Pittsburgh district auditions.

Robert Croan

Maura Nguyen Donohue

An autobiographical dance solo can be daunting at best -- dredging up the past, revisiting old wounds, rethinking what could have been. Maura Nguyen Donohue shouldered it all when she arrived at The Andy Warhol Museum on Saturday night with "When You're Old Enough," a troubled theatrical journey toward her own biracial balance.

She gave it her all, baring her soul (and her breasts) in this 45-minute solo about self-discovery. Hers was a subject about which many Americans still turn their heads -- the Vietnam War, of which she was a product, the daughter of an Irish-American father and Vietnamese mother.

She was raised in New England from an early age, but the stigma never left. So there Donohue was on the tiny Warhol stage, her family history peering over her shoulder via slide projections. The smiling child on the wall was listening to Donohue yell "Chink!" as she proceeded to unveil the racial biases that have peppered her existence.

Most of the movement was essentially American, the powerful leaps and jumps, the tumbling floor work that physically conveyed the inner turbulence over the prejudices pressed upon her. She would wrestle with her Catholicism, produce a gut-wrenching family secret about a half-brother, talk about the reverse bias toward her in Vietnam.

Donohue was a woman straddling two continents, showing a seamy side of prejudice that most of us never bother to address.

It was definitely the stuff of intrigue.

Jane Vranish

Bach Choir of Pittsburgh

There is an easy mix to the voices of the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh, and the basic texture of the works in the holiday concert "A Season's Promise" suited both its size and its setting Sunday night -- the cavernous space of Calvary Episcopal Church, Shadyside.

Conducted with an easy-going manner by Brady Allred, the 130-voice choir was joined by Gretchen van Hoesen, principal harpist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and her husband James Gorton, the PSO's co-principal oboist.

With composers from Michael Praetorius to the local Glenn Rudolph to Ned Rorem, the program consisted mainly of Christmas pieces -- some traditional, some with new settings and a few original works.

If there was a high point, it was the encore by Rudolph of "The Dream Isaiah Saw," commissioned by the Bach Choir. In the traditional carols, the choir sang nicely indeed. A setting of "Silent Night" by Leo Nestor gave the traditional carol a warm ember glow that fit the room and the choir well.

All in all, a wonderfully warm and peaceful concert.

David DeAngelo