World-famous Hagegård visits IU

World-renowned Swedish baritone Håkon Hagegård is teaching masterclasses at IU, and will be performing Schubert's song cycle Die Winterreise this Friday at the IU School of Music.\nHagegård was born in Karlstad, Sweden, November 25, 1945. He studied in Stockholm, giving his first recital in 1965, and his opera debut at the Royal Opera in 1968 as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. The flexibility of his warm, lyrical voice has also allowed him the opportunity to do larger roles like Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca and the title role of Verdi's Rigoletto with equal command. His voice is extremely flexible and he has over 85 albums to his name, ranging in chronology from Caccini to Corigliano in genres including lieder, operas, oratorios, cantatas, Requiems and Masses.\nAs a masterclass teacher here at IU, Hagegård has been emphasizing the dramatic and poetic to great success.\n"He is excellent," IU voice professor Patricia Stiles said. "His portrayals of songs are exciting, and it allows the perspective of the singer to change."\nThe very different perspective can challenge singers into a direct if not uncomfortable means of communication in their singing.\n"It changes the way you think of performing," graduate student soprano Margaret Schwein said. "I was singing towards the piano, which is something normally unheard of."\nWhen one considers a change to their approach in performance, it can cause a re-evaluation on many levels of artistry.\n"He challenges the singer to think outside themselves as a communicator, breaking down the ideas of technique and performance practice," graduate student, soprano Erin Kelley said. "It's a sort of reshuffling of your deck of cards."\nBut Hagegård not only believes in enhancing the perspective of the singer, but the audience too.\n"Doing the music is to lift the audience to a higher level of thinking," Hagegård said.\nIndeed, intelligence is a key ingredient to Hagegård's formula for effective singing.\n"He's an intelligent singer," doctorate student, baritone Royce Blackburn said. "It's obvious that his concern and main goal has been to get students to understand the piece theatrically."\nHagegård's approach to Schubert's Die Winterreise this Friday night is sure to contain elements of theatricality. Hagegård has been performing Die Winterreise since 1970, but it may be a little different this time around.\n"I will do it semi-staged here," Hagegård said. "Now a lot of singers are staging recitals. Staging adds more colors, variety and possibilities. I also feel privileged to perform a work like this, as fewer and fewer singers are getting to the central works in the repertoire."\nDie Winterreise is a cycle of 24 songs to poetry by Wilhelm Müller. Schubert became familiar with the poems from a contemporary circulating almanac. The coloration and painting Schubert uses in the vocal and piano parts are in many ways revolutionary. One example would be the sixteenth-note triplets against solid quarter notes in the bass in the fourth song, representing the falling snow and the unending footsteps of the traveler.\nThe cycle ends despairingly, as the traveler meets an organ grinder, and by broken melodic phrases and neurotic observations decides to go with this lone musician to a desolate life. The cycle has a constant motion which keeps the poetic and dramatic flow steady. And Hagegård has every intent of preserving this motion, in an athletic way.\n"I am going to perform the work with no intermission," Hagegård said. "Schubert wrote the work as one large conception not to be interrupted."\nHelping him convey this seamless conception will be pianist Warren Jones.\nHagegård has been working with Jones for about 18 years. Originally, Hagegård had been working with Martin Katz, but on one occasion when Katz was unavailable to play, Katz suggested one of his brilliant students. Consequently, Jones came from the U.S. to Sweden, and Hagegård and Jones built an enormous repertoire together, and developed a strong chemistry where now ideas between the singer and pianist can be communicated without words.\n"He's very fast, and reaches the center and crux of a piece quickly," Hagegård said. "We recorded the complete Grieg songs in six days, which is almost impossible to do, unless you have an accompanist who absorbs musical material and understands it rapidly."\nNext week, Hagegård will be performing Die Sieben Frühe Lieder of Alban Berg. Next year he will be the first male singer to perform Mahler's Second Symphony, with the London Philharmonic. \n"The Urlicht movement of the Mahler Symphony was originally written for a male voice before it was included in the symphony," Hagegård said. "And the final movement works as a duet between soprano and baritone."\nHåkon Hagegård will be teaching one more masterclass at Sweeney Hall on Thursday, July 18 at 10:30 a.m. free of charge. The performance of Die Winterreise will take place on Friday, July 19 at 8 p.m. in Auer Hall, where the tickets cost $12, $7 for IUB students.