Tenor Matthew Polenzani and pianist Ken Noda bring their celebrated artistry to an intimate and searching evening of song at the French Embassy. Opening with Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang, the composer's final and perhaps most profound gift to the song repertoire. This cycle, whose title evokes the legendary swan's last song before death, moves through landscapes of longing, loss, and transcendence, setting texts by Heine and Rellstab with visionary intensity. Together, Polenzani and Noda explore every shade of this journey, a collaboration illuminating both the aching vulnerability and the quiet, inexorable beauty that make Schwanengesang an enduring pinnacle of song.
The second half of the program turns to the rich warmth of the Italian tradition, with a selection of songs and arias by Francesco Cilea, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Gaetano Donizetti, and Francesco Paolo Tosti. From the passionate ardor of the verismo masters to Tosti's incomparable gift for melody and Pizzetti's quietly spiritual lyricism, this is music that speaks directly to the heart. Polenzani — one of the most admired tenors of his generation — brings to these works a voice of honeyed beauty and rare expressive intelligence, while Noda's piano ensures that voice and piano speak with one voice.