Ben Bliss makes U.S. recital debut in Harriman-Jewell Series with hometown pride

To a packed house of family, friends, fans and free-ticket holders, tenor Ben Bliss made his American recital debut at the Folly Theater for the Harriman-Jewell Series’ Discovery Concert. This Prairie Village native, together with pianist Lachlan Glen, presented an entertaining concert of mixed repertoire, personal stories and regional shout-outs, including the Chiefs, Town Topic, the Gant sisters and jokes about Branson.

The last time Bliss performed at the Folly was 2004, with the Shawnee Mission East High School jazz band. This time he interspersed art songs and anecdotes with a personable manner, far removed from stodgy misconceptions of a rising opera star. The audience applauded loudly and laughed frequently, appreciative of the musician’s showmanship and welcoming presence. Glen was a deft partner and fine performer in his own right, eliciting quite a few spontaneous cheers.

The first portion featured works in German, French and Italian, starting with an intimate selection of songs from Richard Strauss and Lili Boulanger. Bliss’ German was more assured than his French, though he drew out the text with a comfortable, heartfelt musicality, especially in Strauss’ “Morgen” and Boulanger’s “Nous nous aimerons tant.”

He performed “O wie ängstlich” from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Die Entfuhrung aus dem Seral” (not coincidentally, his debut with the Metropolitan Opera), more comfortably, more theatrically and with the vibrant color and presence of the operatic tenor. Gaetano Donizetti’s “Una furtive lagrima” was a subdued version, intimating how this voice would transfer to a larger hall.

Bliss chose a variety of English-language (and mostly American) songs for the second half, emphasizing the importance of the poetry. Here, though, he stumbled from time to time, choosing dramatics over adhering to the score to these perhaps less familiar works, but recovered well.

He introduced two playful settings of e.e. cummings’ text by John Gruen, a composer, photographer and arts critic who died this past July. These pieces, interestingly, had never been published, only recorded, and Bliss tracked down Gruen’s daughter, Julia, who tracked down the manuscript in her father’s belongings, and allowed Bliss to perform these works on his concert tour, which includes Carnegie Hall. According to Bliss, these delicious little works were written and dedicated to Julia at her birth, and were performed with an air of serendipitous discovery.

Songs from Lowell Liebermann, Theodore Chanler and an especially heartfelt piece by Ned Rorem, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening,” were followed with a finely wrought set from Benjamin Britten and a delicate finish to Leonard Bernstein’s “Maria.”

Bliss channeled his inner crooner, mining the American songbook: a fine, understated rendition of Eden Ahbez’ “Nature Boy,” a goofy take on Harold Arlen’s “One for My Baby,” and an audience favorite in Ray Charles’ “Hallelujah I Love Her So,” with raucous playing from Glen and a surprising entrance from Bliss’s brother-in-law Nathan on saxophone, in sunglasses. Cheesy? Yes. Endearing for the hometown crowd? Yes, as well, and two encores hailed the standing ovation: the spiritual “Down to the River to Pray” and another Nat Cole King favorite in “Orange Colored Sky.”

This story was originally published October 23, 2016 at 11:38 AM with the headline "Ben Bliss makes U.S. recital debut in Harriman-Jewell Series with hometown pride."