Who Wrote The First Opera

Spencer Day demonstrates to Opera House fans that he's moving on

For his most recent visit to the Napa Valley, singer/songwriter Spencer Day stirred up thoughts of life imitating art — or is that the other way around?

We’ve gotten to know Day over the years, from knocking about San Francisco’s performance spaces showcasing his fertile imagination in song to appearances here in Napa, where he previewed the songs from his first recording with Concord Jazz.

It was that recording — particularly its title track, “Vagabond” — that came to mind during last Thursday night’s return engagement at the Napa Valley Opera House.

Here was Day once again providing a window into his personal life, chatting up his move to New York City, raving about the recent opportunity of a six-month engagement in a West End London show, confessing the heartache that comes with the end of a love affair.

Not only that, here he was fronting a new trio of musicians — both to him and us — which meant, for all intents and purposes, listening to familiar material with new ears.

Spencer Day was indeed the vagabond he’d sung about the last time he came to town. He looked the same — the tall, handsome, some-might-say-gawky guy next door. He sounded the same — save for new arrangements, some of which added luster to the lyrics, some where the absence of a comforting cello gave us pause.

But something was different. Maybe the grind of eight shows a week in London had toughened him up. Ditto for the heartbreak. Sure, he’s two years older than the last time he unspooled “The Movie of Your Life.” Yet there was noticeable musical maturity at times that we hadn’t seen and heard before.

Day showed us he was not afraid of taking risks. Dismissing his superb backup band, Day chose to close the 90-minute performance with a song associated heretofore with a female vocalist — actually one female vocalist, June Christy. In 1954’s “Something Cool,” the dread of moving on alone was heartwrenchingly evoked as the singer revealed:

“I don’t ordinarily drink with strangers, I guess I usually drink alone. But you were so awfully nice to ask me ... and I'm so terribly far from home.”

Our musical nomad kicked the show into high gear well into the evening’s first set as he introduced us to the first of his songwriting efforts prompted by “a not-so-recent breakup. I wrote this while riding the bipolar express,” he added, in an attempt to lighten the confession. “How Did You Do It?” turned out to be a sassy blues tune about what used to be, boiled down to the all-important question: “How do I learn to let you go?

Festival Review:Boston Early Music Festival | Seen and Heard ...

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The Boston Early Musical Festival that ended this past week occurs biennially and has done so for the last 30 years. This year the event attracted an estimated 15,000 people with hundreds of concerts, operas, master classes, lectures and exhibitions. I’m not sure how the attendance compared to previous years, but at a lecture-recital given by fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, he was told that he would need 50 handouts. He was short by about 100 leaflets.

I was only able to join the Festival for the last three days, but that was enough to share in the excitement and anticipation of events with some of the great specialists in early music. In addition to Bezuidenhout, there was the young countertenor Philippe Jaroussky (more about him later); the vocal groups The King’s Singers and the Canadian Les Voix Baroques; members of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra; Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars; Jordi Savall; and the list goes on.

The BEMF Festival and Exhibition Guide runs over 300 pages. Fortunately, it reproduces most of the concerts’ programs, adding details to the somewhat skimpy playbills handed out at each performance. It was an absolutely necessary informational source for all the events.

Keyboard Mini-Festivals

As part of the BEMF, there were two “mini-festivals,” the first one an exploration of the organ. The second, which I attended, was devoted to the keyboard. Following the year’s main theme, “Metamorphosis: Change and Transformation,” this mini-festival was titled “The Keyboard as a Catalyst for Change and Transformation.” The offerings ranged from a musician whose lecture basically consisted of announcing the title of the work to be played, to a performer who spent much of his time talking, which just left a short period to play music.

The recital hall was the First Church of Boston, a modern space that is not quite intimate but has surprisingly good acoustics, particularly given the small dynamic range of the keyboards played. Peter Sykes introduced all three sessions, one devoted to the harpsichord, one to the fortepiano and one to the clavichord. Each instrument had two keyboardists presenting their specialty.

The musical times

The concise Oxford dictionary of opera

Contemporary composers on contemporary music

All music guide to classical music, the definitive guide to classical music

Harvard dictionary of music