Fans of Ricky Ian Gordon's collection of songs Bright Eyed Joy have already sampled eight songs from Only Heaven and will find even more to enjoy on this complete, 74-minute recording of the song cycle. Though Gordon is co... more »nsidered a rising star of American musical theater, Only Heaven is not a musical. But it is a stage work, 29 songs set to the writings of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (texts are included), and realized by seven singers, dancers, and a handful of instruments (including Gordon at the piano). While we can't pick up what the live audience at the Dayton Art Institute in February 2002 is laughing at, we can enjoy the songs, sharp and dissonant at times but also meltingly beautiful, powerfully sung, and building to a strong climax. Hughes's jazzy verse works well with Gordon's frequently jazzy music, especially when it's sung by Darius de Haas. A distinctly American work. --David Horiuchi« less
Fans of Ricky Ian Gordon's collection of songs Bright Eyed Joy have already sampled eight songs from Only Heaven and will find even more to enjoy on this complete, 74-minute recording of the song cycle. Though Gordon is considered a rising star of American musical theater, Only Heaven is not a musical. But it is a stage work, 29 songs set to the writings of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (texts are included), and realized by seven singers, dancers, and a handful of instruments (including Gordon at the piano). While we can't pick up what the live audience at the Dayton Art Institute in February 2002 is laughing at, we can enjoy the songs, sharp and dissonant at times but also meltingly beautiful, powerfully sung, and building to a strong climax. Hughes's jazzy verse works well with Gordon's frequently jazzy music, especially when it's sung by Darius de Haas. A distinctly American work. --David Horiuchi
CD Reviews
A moving, powerful surprise
ag35466 | Providence, RI | 10/03/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I didn't think much of Gordon's last album, Bright-Eyed Joy, so I wasn't sure I'd stick around for more than a few tracks of this one. But I did, and found much to enjoy. This CD has all the variety that that one lacked, and as a piece of music theater, it builds to a powerful conclusion. The last five or six tracks -- which move from oppression and despair to violence and death -- are incredibly strong, yet the final moments ascend to such lyric heights that the effect is almost exultant. Along the way, it was the tender songs that stayed with me most: "Kid in the Park," a poignant look at urban isolation; "Stars," a soaring lullaby; and "Love Song for Antonia," the gentlest of unrequited love songs. All of the performers are excellent, and to my surprise, Jonita Lattimore's rendition of "Song for a Dark Girl" blows Audra McDonald's recorded performance out of the water. The Langston Hughes texts, nicely presented in the CD booklet, remind one how much this brilliant writer was able to say in a few lines of poetry; indeed, one of the CD's most affecting moments is a brief, underscored ode to lost friendship simply titled "Poem.""
Spellbinding!
Ian Lincoln | Dayton, Ohio | 06/20/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I was not in any way prepared for the power this recording has. It starts and grabs you and carrys you to levels of harrowing depth, tearing you to pieces by the end! It is not only the settings of Langston Hughes which Mr. Gordon has set so brilliantly, paying attention to every nuance and detail of the poems, but the riveting, totally committed performances which leap out from this live performance and wrap their hands around your throat. I only wish I were there at the actual event. The orchestrations seem to play a role all their own, from the plucking of the strings in "In Time Of Silver Rain," to the horrifying harmonics sizzling throughout "Song For A Dark Girl," which is maybe one of the most upsetting songs I have ever heard, and Jonita Lattimore couldn't possibly serve it better. The world is a better place with this recording in it. It will change your life. Buy it!!!"
Only Heaven SOARS
Stephen A. Lance | Philadelphia, PA | 12/30/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I was a big Ricky Ian Gordon fan when I heard his song "I Never Knew" on the THE AID'S QUILT SONGBOOK and then even a bigger fan once I heard his songs on Audra McDonald's album WAY BACK TO PARADISE. Then I found BRIGHT EYED JOY and I became completely consumed by that lbum which pretty much had me running to every store to find ONLY HEAVEN. I was so intrigued by that album and I still am, because it takes the songs that he wrote from Langston Hughes poetry and creates a performance around them. I say a performance because its not a really a show and it's not really a concert. But there is one thing to say about it...that it's amazing and it really soars to Heaven."
Opera News Review of New York Production of "Only Heaven"
E. Cameron | Pittsburgh, PA | 11/08/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"He is not the most well-known American composer today, but does any colleague of Ricky Ian Gordon's share or surpass his skills at writing achingly beautiful music for the human voice and picking such apposite poetry to translate into song? Only Heaven, a revue including more than two dozen of his settings of Langston Hughes's poetry, suggested that the answer is no. Gordon's music -- melodic, intimate, with an inspired gift for bringing out the inner music of a given poem in unexpected ways -- has no trouble finding the sound of any kind of Hughes lyric, whether comic, romantic, enraged or ruminative. The sound is an intriguing mix of art song and show tune; it can be as delicate as a chanson and as broad as a Gershwin dance number. (Bernstein's and Weill's American works are, I suspect, Gordon's biggest influences.)
In this ninety-minute revue, beautiful song after beautiful song swept past the audience's ears. The production, by Encompass: New Opera Theatre at the Connelly Theater (a small but acoustically formidable theater for opera and shows), was handsomely designed but a little misguided. Depression-era costumes gave Hughes's words an almost stereotypically period feel. A quick walk around any part of New York demonstrates that Hughes's sentiments and characters are as alive at this moment (and among all kinds of people) as they were when he created them.
But the composer couldn't have asked for finer performances. Six musicians played the often-difficult orchestrations splendidly. Despite his being placed backstage, Charles Prince's conducting was outstanding: deeply felt and beautiful. And the four singers were flawless. Michael Lofton offered a mature baritone with incisive, moving overtones. Sherry Boone's light soprano gathered formidable power and thrust when a song's emotions demanded them, and her tone was always beautiful. Monique McDonald, a lirico-spinto of considerable promise, soared through the most difficult above-the-scale passages, with sometimes astonishing success. In pianissimo, her voice didn't ravish the ear as it did at all other dynamic levels. It was risky of Gordon to shun the jazzy imagery of "When Sue Wears Red," setting it instead as a song Satie would have recognized (and enjoyed), and it was extraordinary to hear tenor Keith Byron Kirk sail through the very high, sustained exultation of the melody with such complete authority. All the singers had the words and music to heart, and their singing and acting were rich with the full palette of emotions poet and composer created. Two gifted young dancers -- Monique Rhodriguez and Whitney V. Hunter -- were similarly successful.
DAYTON--There are far more than a few "crumbs from the table of joy" in Only Heaven, a sophisticated and transporting musical theater work by Ricky Ian Gordon that opened Friday night in the Dayton Art Institute's 500-seat NCR Renaissance Auditorium.
Produced by the Muse Machine as the centerpiece of its 20th anniversary and directed by Joe Deer, with music direction by Joseph Bates, the fast-moving but memorable two-act presentation is based on the writings of Langston Hughes.
Thirty-eight selections ranging from excerpts to entire poems are sung, spoken and interpreted in dance movements during what is not quite an opera or musical, but is much more than a revue. Some songs stand out as self-contained showcases of a thought or a singer's vocal ability. Others blend in suites that approach narrative.
Their presence, dramatic expression and vocal power made the four featured singers--tenor Darius de Haas, soprano Adrienne Danrich, soprano Jonita Lattimore and baritone Jay Pierce--the near-constant focus during the final dress rehearsal performance on Wednesday night, but Hughes' words are always at the center.
Played by an ensemble including the composer on piano, Gordon's music flows from and alongside the lyrics, sometimes dashing ahead with impetuous enthusiasm to bring the text along, other times pausing to isolate or display a facet of it. The overall effect is an effortless pairing that clarifies interpretation and explores a wide range of feelings.
Only Heaven doesn't dwell on or shy away from the turmoil, pain and anger in Hughes' poetry.
A suite of settings in Act 2 that encompasses Pierce`s powerful rendition of Border Line, Lattimore's Song for a Dark Girl whose lover has been hanged in the post-slavery South, de Haas' passionate solo about death, Drum, and the repetition of the same words by one after the other in Prayer may be the most spellbinding passage of a production in which the singers' faces can be as compelling as their voices.
Things begin on a light and happy note--de Haas' soaring rendition of Heaven, a place "where happiness is everywhere."
The performance ends, if not quite on a hopeful note, then definitely on one that encourages people to care for each other, with Litany.
Choreographer-dancer Shonna Hickman-Matlock and Michael-Lamont Lytle evoke qualities as various as moonlight, comfort and death with their movements. The recitations of actress Sheila Ramsey establish her as a go between and knowing, regal presence.
There's pride in My People, hope in Time of Silver Rain and Daybreak in Alabama, love, romance and desire in Love Song for Lucinda, When Sue Wears Red and Joy. But Hughes often counters one emotion with another, as in Kid in the Park, where home is just around the corner, "but not really anywhere"; and images, as in Angels Wings, which are "white as snow," in contrast to the narrator's, which have been "drug in the dirty mire" and "all through the fire."
The blues of heart and soul are reflected in the light-catching painted fabric designer Dunsi Dai has draped with fluid elegance across the stage. But so is the "blue cloud-cloth" Hughes writes of using to protect tender dreams and "heart melodies." Such treasures are in safe hands with during Only Heaven.
- Terry Morris, Dayton Daily News, 23 February 2002
Track Listings (29) - Disc #1