Emily D’Angelo sings of ‘enargeia’ — extreme vividness — in many forms

“It was the silver lining of the pandemic.”

Everyone has searched for silver linings since March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic completely upended everyday life around the world. The precious slice that Canadian-born mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo found was time. 

By early 2020, her career was in high gear. She had won important international competitions, was an alumna of the Metropolitan Opera’s prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and was named a 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist.

Suddenly facing a calendar of canceled and postponed performances, D’Angelo saw that she finally had time to focus on her debut CD. Titled enargeia, the album was released last year on Deutsche Grammophon to critical acclaim. With tracks stretching from arrangements of plainchant by the 12th-century composer Hildegard von Bingen to compositions by contemporary Americans Missy Mazzoli and Sarah Kirkland Snider, enargeia made National Public Radio’s list of 50 best albums of 2021.

D’Angelo will perform selections from the album on Aug. 17 in the Martin Theatre. Accompanied by pianist Kevin Murphy, director of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute Program for Singers, she will offer an even wider range of composers in her recital. The lineup features songs by Arnold Schoenberg, Florence Price, Aaron Copland and a cantata, Giovanna d’Arco, by Rossini. D’Angelo also will appear as Sesto in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Conlon, on the same stage, on Aug. 12 and 14.

“It took a lot of time to come up with the concept and select repertoire [for the album], to really solidify something that was cohesive,” said D’Angelo from Paris, where she was wrapping up a run of Gounod’s Faust at the Paris Opera. “There was the ability to have the time to think about that.”

The impetus for the album, she said, was Hildegard von Bingen. Born in 1098, the abbess of a community of German Benedictine nuns and renowned in her day as a gifted composer, philosopher, mystic and scientist, she was rediscovered by feminist scholars in recent years. The Catholic Church canonized her as St. Hildegard von Bingen in 2012.

“She was a modern, modern figure, so multifaceted and interdisciplinary. She was a thinker, a creator, a scientist in her own way and a leader.” — Emily D’Angelo on Hildegard von Bingen

“I was always interested in creating a project that revolved around her,” D’Angelo said. “She was a modern, modern figure, so multifaceted and interdisciplinary in so many ways. She was a thinker, a creator, a scientist in her own way and a leader whom other people turned to for guidance in more ways than one. When I was in a children’s chorus — that was a big part of my musical upbringing — we performed plainchant by Hildegard von Bingen. I was totally mesmerized. It stuck with me, and I thought, this needs to be revisited.”

Figuring out how to structure an album inspired by Hildegard’s haunting plainchant was not easy. Based in Berlin during the pandemic, D’Angelo started discussing the idea with colleagues, including sound engineer Jonas Niederstadt. He connected her with Jarkko Riihimäki, an arranger, composer and pianist with experience ranging from classical to pop music and electronics. “Everyone involved with this album was multidisciplinary in some way, starting with Hildegard and all the way through the sound engineer. It was very collaborative.”

Enargeia also includes four songs by Mazzoli, four by Snider and two by contemporary Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. Like plainchant, the contemporary works have strongly etched melodic lines supported by a deep emotional undercurrent. D’Angelo hit upon the album’s title while doing preliminary research. A word from ancient Greek rhetoric, enargeia is roughly equivalent to “extreme vividness, radiance or presence.”

“Nothing could be random or out of left field,” she said. “The pieces all had to be connected on many different levels for there to be a cohesive product. It’s an experience; it’s a listening experience that needed to be an album. That’s a big ask these days, when it’s all streaming services and playlists and short, catchy hits.”

Of course, creating an effective album is not the same as shaping a live  recital, which is why D’Angelo’s Ravinia program is so varied.

“It’s not dissimilar to creating an album, in that you’re looking for an arc, a unified experience. But it’s a totally different medium. It’s live. You have to consider vocal pacing, dramatic pacing.” 

Since the pandemic has eased, D’Angelo has returned to the opera stage, singing leading roles at Covent Garden in London, La Scala and the Berlin and Bavarian state opera houses. But recitals were always her first love. Her solo recital and Mozart opera performances mark her Martin Theatre debut, but she is no stranger to Ravinia. A fellow at the Ravinia Steans Music Institute in 2015 and 2016, she has fond memories of hearing concerts in the intimate Arts & Crafts theater.

“Steans had a huge impact,” D’Angelo said. “I was 19 or 20; I met my teacher there [Steans faculty member, mezzo-soprano Patricia McCaffrey], and Kevin has stayed in my life since then. The amount of time you could really dedicate to recital repertoire is something I feel so lucky to have had. Most of my study was actually not in opera; it was in concert and recital repertoire. To be able to continue working with pianists and coaches and singers on that repertoire was so exciting and really pivotal for me.” 

Excerpted with permission from Ravinia Magazine.