With Grammy-winning soprano Hila Plitmann preparing to give the world premiere of Mark Abel’s The Palm Trees Are Restless in a few weeks, we’re pleased to read new praise for the song cycle in Gregory Berg’s new review of the Home Is a Harbor package in the Journal of Singing. Referring to Abel as “a skilled and assured composer of songs,” Berg says:
“The Palm Trees Are Restless is a setting of five poems by Los Angeles writer Kate Gale, one of the most gifted poets before the public today. The texts are a discerning reflection on modern life, and they seem to have inspired Abel to the summit of his powers. These are complex poems replete with sharply shifting moods and flavors, and in the hands of a lesser composer we could have been left with a chaotic jumble. Abel has found a way to harness and embrace the restless energy of these texts with masterful assurance and ingenuity.”
Berg is also struck by Harbor’s “intriguing and colorful accompaniment, which (combines) instrumental colors in arresting ways. It leaves one very hungry to hear more of this sort of thing from him. The best passages from this opera, such as its atmospheric prelude or the radiant duet sung by the sisters to close the work, point to Abel’s potential as an opera composer…”
Read More From Gregory Berg’s Review
(Home Is a Harbor is) the first opera of Mark Abel, a skilled and assured composer of songs. … It is a coming-of-age story for two sisters who venture out from the relative safety and comfort of their small hometown to seek success in two different cities. By the time we’re done, we’ve touched on such issues as homelessness, the war in Afghanistan, the financial crisis, graft in the art world, and the angst and alienation of life in modern America.
The best thing about the work is its intriguing and colorful accompaniment, which is scored for small chamber orchestra. Abel obviously knows something about combining instrumental colors in arresting ways. It leaves one very hungry to hear more of this sort of thing from him. The best passages from this opera, such as its atmospheric prelude or the radiant duet sung by the sisters to close the work, point to Abel’s potential as an opera composer … .
The Palm Trees Are Restless is a setting of five poems by Los Angeles writer Kate Gale, one of the most gifted poets before the public today. The texts are a discerning reflection on modern life, and they seem to have inspired Abel to the summit of his powers. These are complex poems replete with sharply shifting moods and flavors, and in the hands of a lesser composer we could have been left with a chaotic jumble. Abel has found a way to harness and embrace the restless energy of these texts with masterful assurance and ingenuity.
The set opens with what is surely the loveliest song ever written about a storm drain, and it treats us to the composer’s unerring ear for color. It’s followed by “Los Angeles,” a lengthy and complicated text that captures the unique and endlessly varied character of the city, its inhabitants, and what life is like there. Gale’s text is a gauntlet of wildly divergent experiences and emotions, and Abel’s music brings it all thrillingly to life.
“Crater Light” is a sardonic expression of what it feels like to be abandoned by one’s lover; the title refers to how someone nursing such hurt is likely to view even something as lovely as moonlight as nothing but an aching reminder of the pleasures that someone else is enjoying. “Shura” is a song of haunting and mysterious beauty that also demonstrates the profound impact one can achieve by blending contrasting textures in telling ways. The set ends with quite a bang, courtesy of a hectoring song titled “The Great Divorce” that literally gives us one side of an angry conversation, as though we were eavesdropping as someone engaged in a furious phone call. Gale’s text is powerful in and of itself, but with Abel’s musical setting it gains even more visceral impact.
Fortunately for Abel, he has a soprano who manages to cope with (the cycle’s) punishing tessitura with surprising success. Soprano Hila Plitmann is to be commended for her exciting and expressive singing, and Tali Tadmor partners her at the piano with impressive aplomb.” —Gregory Berg, The Journal of Singing
Hila Plitmann Premieres The Palm Trees Are Restless
October 01, 2016 – 8:00pm
Boston Court Performing Arts Center
70 N. Mentor Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91106
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