Bullock Is Back, and Going Baroque

Although the Baroque ensemble Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) was founded in 1986, it’s taken nearly four decades for the London-based ensemble – which employs period instruments to offer historically accurate performances of the much-beloved repertoire – to make it to Santa Barbara. OAE’s local debut is set for January 21 at the Lobero Theatre via UCSB Arts & Lectures, and has a special bonus: the return of the versatile Grammy-winning American soprano Julia Bullock, who will perform several pieces in her stateside debut of singing Baroque music. 

Bullock’s career has careened between operas on major stages and carefully curated recital programs, including her History’s Persistent Voice project,which combines the songs of enslaved people with new music by Black American women. Bullock’s 2022 solo album debut, Walking in the Dark, won a Grammy while her recordings of West Side Story and Doctor Atomic also received acclaim. More recently and locally, Bullock enraptured the audience with her and the American Modern Opera Company’s setting of Messiaen’s HARAWI at Campbell Hall last fall. On Friday night, she will perform a varied Baroque program (see below) interspersed with the OAE ensemble offering instrumental works by Vivaldi, Bach, Pachelbel and others. 

Bullock responded to email questions about the pairing last weekend.

Q. This is the first time you are singing a Baroque program stateside. What prompted you to want to do this with OAE?

A. OAE reached out to me – funnily, I never asked why! Maybe it’s because the ethos of the orchestra is similar to my own: we don’t make assumptions about audience members and what they do or don’t “know” about this particular art form; we try to cultivate an inviting environment, just love what we do, and want to share the surprises and delights in the music with as many people as possible.

What is it about Baroque music in general that appeals to you? 

It’s music that has flexibility and leaves lots of room for improvisation, and therefore ignites all synapses and the imagination of every performer who chooses to embody the material. It’s music that’s timeless, because the melodies stay with you and the dance aspects of the pieces erupt in the body… And when it comes to the poetry, a lot of it is just extraordinary… and unpredictable. 

Can you take me through the “Blockbuster Baroque” program? Why these composers and pieces? How do they speak to you? 

Handel’s arias are from some of his most famous opera/oratorios. The “Verdi prati” is the first piece of Handel’s I ever studied while still in college, and it’s about the inevitable fading and changing of the external and internal self. It’s delicate and sort of devastating. The “Da tempesta…” aria is sung by Cleopatra at the end of Guilio Cesare, and acknowledges the challenges of the past, but shedding the pain. It comes at the end of the opera after lots of war and plotting and imprisonment – and here, she’s finally free! In the program, it comes right after another piece that was connected to wartime that features two oboes, and the musical relationships between the two pieces are direct – Handel essentially quotes himself – and is sung by Cleopatra at the end of Guilio Cesare. (I love that later this year I’ll sing another iteration of Cleopatra that focuses on the later part of her life, written by John Adams.) 

“Let the Bright Seraphim,” from Sampson, is just a bold and brilliant beckoning celebration of the celestial. There is something rigid about it, but it has great rigor. It’s the first vocal piece of Handel’s I ever heard at 17. It was sung by a friend in the high school artists-in-training program at Opera Theater of St. Louis, Marie McManama. She left a deep impression on me years ago and she is also why I applied to study at Eastman School of Music. I only hope I live up to my memory of how magnificently she sang it.

Barbara Strozzi is a composer I didn’t know before being asked to contribute repertoire ideas for this program… Her “Che si può fare?” asks in a totally vulnerable way, when life can be filled with torment that seems inescapable: “What is there to be done? What is there to say? What?” It’s stunning.

Purcell’s “If love’s a Sweet Passion” is a bittersweet, poignant song about love that is inevitably accompanied with pain and passion that’s sometimes left unsaid. The lyrics are extraordinary, but maybe that’s no surprise, since they were written by Shakespeare.

The encore is by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, another great early music composer who wrote several chamber operas. The piece says to rid yourself of enslavement and even let rage and fury come forward. It’s a short shout for me, but the orchestra is more ferocious and furious. 

How did the first couple of dates in Europe go? 

We only just had our first performance two nights ago, but I’ve just had a blast! … We’re doing this without a conductor, and everyone is especially committed and invested in delivering their part of the material… I also enjoy that the range of material in this program allows me to connect with different players in the ensemble – more intimately with the continuo team (lutist, cellist, harpsichordist, and drummer even!) and of course having a chance to sing with one of the great baroque trumpet players in the world, David Blackadder, whose sound is golden…. But I do still feel a bit nervous, because even though this program includes the “hits” of the baroque era, it’s all new for me!

You’ve said some of these pieces move you to tears. How do you balance the emotional content of the libretto with creating the most beautiful musical sounds? What do you do to harness or tame your emotions?

You just sing it over and over, and eventually the emotional muscles get used to being activated. It’s interesting, because the diaphragm is a muscle directly connected with singing AND with emotion… it gets massaged and activated as one’s breathing is engaged… So it’s no surprise that there’s sometimes a strong release of emotion while singing… To quote a teacher of mine: “have a cool head and a warm heart when you sing,” which to me means remain conscious in my directions and intentions, while remaining open to all that may flood in.