Adrienne Haan – Tehorah in Review
Adrienne Haan – Tehorah
Adrienne Haan, Chanteuse
Heinz-Walter Florin, Piano
Netanel Draiblate and Perry Tal, Violin
Shmuel Katz, Viola
Yoni Draiblate, Cello
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
October 29, 2015
Chanteuse Adrienne Haan gave New York another display of her abundant flair for the vintage cabaret material of Weimar-era Germany in Berlin, this time interleaved with songs in Hebrew and Yiddish. (She also sang in English and French). The title of the concert was Tehorah, the Hebrew word for pure. The evening marked the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of German-Israeli diplomatic relations, which she explained began on May 12, 1965, twenty years and a few days after V-E day.
The audience was full of diplomatic dignitaries from Germany and Israel, and devotees of Hebrew and Yiddish popular song. Dr. Ruth Westheimer (the media personality “Dr. Ruth”) was even present.
Ms. Haan did not disappoint. I heard her “Rock le Cabaret” earlier this year, and many of the same qualities were present, this time in quieter, excellent arrangements by her pianist/music director, Heinz-Walter Florin (of German nationality), and the Israeli string quartet listed above—musical diplomacy mirroring the international kind. I especially enjoyed the interplay between the two Draiblates: Netanel on violin, and Yoni on cello. I hope I am not incorrectly assuming that they may be siblings—the program did not specify—but their fully involved playing and visual communication lent chamber-music quality to an evening of essentially “lighter” music.
Ms. Haan explained that the concert’s message was one of “love and peace,” two areas in which her personality succeeds in matching the content. She performs this style of music with perfect diction in every language, and without the sometimes sour cynicism of, say, Ute Lemper, whose repertoire Ms. Haan shares. I only wish that Ms. Haan had dug into some of the more bitter colorations possible in the German material, even the seemingly funny patter songs. She did achieve this in what, for me, was the highlight of the evening, her performance of Brecht/Weill’s Seeräuber Jenny (Pirate Jenny). Her snarl and growl were absolutely perfect.
Ms. Haan brought amazing variety to the many verses of the strophic songs, through subtle, tasteful shifts of stance or use of hands, and her face is marvelously responsive, even when she isn’t singing. Alles schwindel (Everybody swindles) from 1931 provided a suitably wry introduction to the evening, but it came off as “merely” a comic song, instead of a knowing indictment. Her rendition of Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss eingestellt, better known to us as “Falling in Love Again,” was a “lighter” one, wholesome rather than wearily decadent. It didn’t suggest the conflict between wanting and “not” wanting, but was very well-sung, as was the entire program.
A defiant look at ambiguous sexualities called The Lavender Song: Masculinum/Femininum (1920) was dispatched rapidly, yet with crystal clarity and great humor. The composer, Misha Spoliansky, originally published it under the pseudonym Arno Billing, so dangerous was its content.
In the songs in Hebrew and Yiddish, Ms. Haan tapped into a unique reserve of mellow longing and wistful sadness that suited the minor-key lyricism of, for instance, the contemporary Israeli folk-singer Chava Alberstein’s The Exclusive Garden and I Stand Beneath a Carob Tree.
Ms. Haan’s informative yet concise patter between songs taught the audience that the poet of the well-known Lili Marleen was a World War I veteran, and that it was set to music only in 1937, on the verge of the next conflagration.
The evening can certainly be counted a success, because of Ms. Haan’s impeccable taste and her good-natured stage presence. The audience ate up every tune—some of my nearby seatmates were even humming along; and she performs a crucial, dare I say, “educational” role in preserving this music for new generations. However, since her role models (Lemper, Dietrich, et al) in the repertoire are so iconic, I trust she will continue to deepen the layers of characterization in her portrayals—there was a top hat and a feather boa on her prop table that, alas, were never utilized. Auf wiedersehn! Lehit-ra-ot! Zay gezunt!
