There are some nights that are enchanted in every way- and last night was such a night. Kathy and I drove to Williams Bay, Wisconsin (not far from Lake Geneva) to attend a concert presented by one of our very favorite singers, Brian Stokes Mitchell. He was kicking off the 10th anniversary season of Music By The Lake – a concert series performed in an almost impossibly lovely setting. . . the open-air Ferro Pavilion located right on the shore of Geneva Lake. The seres has presented a wonderful array of musical styles: opera, jazz, rock, folk – you name it. I attended an art song recital last summer which featured baritone Thomas Hampson, and as soon as I heard about Mr. Mitchell I knew that I would be back and that one way or another I would have my wife with me.
As it happens, Music By The Lake is one of the underwriters of WGTD (our signal now reaches nicely into Lake Geneva) and one consequence of that relationship is that I have the opportunity to interview some of their artists . . . like Brian Stokes Mitchell. Our interview was scheduled for this past Wednesday at 12 noon – and I sat beside our production room phone with a list of questions in front of me, trying to keep my pulse from racing out of control. Right at the top of the hour, the phone rang- but there was no one there. Crestfallen, I hung up the phone and waited for it to ring again. And waited. And waited. And waited. Ten minutes after the hour, I emailed the P.R. person and was told to wait until the bottom of the hour, in the hopes that he was just having phone trouble. And sure enough, at 12:22 the phone rang again. . . and it was Brian Stokes Mitchell, apologizing profusely. It turns out that he was taking the subway and didn’t have sufficiently strong signal there, and couldn’t call back until he was “above ground” again. We proceeded to have our conversation, but I was sort of tripped up by the unexpected delay and the abrupt start – and was far below my “A” game. But fortunately, he is a delightful guy who loves to talk, and even with my nervous bumbling it turned out to be a pretty darned good interview. He was talking to me as he ambled down the sidewalks of Manhattan, on his way to watch his 6-year-old son Ellington in a school talent show. . .and when he finally got to the school, the interview had to end. It gave it such a sense of immediacy and energy! And once we finished our conversation, I was even more certain that I wanted to attend his concert. After having only heard him on CD or seen him on TV, I had to experience his voice and charisma in person.
And he did not disappoint. This was a stupendous concert in every way- from the beauty of the setting to the array of songs. . . which consisted mostly of powerful favorites (“Some Enchanted Evening,” “This Nearly Was Mine,” “Stars” from Les Miserables, “S’Wonderful,” “The Impossible Dream” and Billy’s Soliloquy from Carousel) sung with his trademark majesty. But there were also some very quiet, silky songs that were sheer magic- and also a couple in which the singer let go of his thundering, towering richness to sing as though he were a young adolescent – including an amazingly heartfelt and tender performance of “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” Backing him up were musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under the able direction of Paul Gemigniani. And when it was all done, we realized that time had just raced by and we would have happily sat there another two hours to hear more.
And then there was a lovely surprise that made the night even better. We were pretty certain that we wouldn’t see a single familiar face in that audience (we were 40 miles from home) but in fact we saw one of Kathy’s dearest friends from high school, Steve Bahr, and his wife Kathy – – – and also Ken and Barb Olsen, two of the Berg family’s dearest friends from Luther Valley. These unexpected encounters with friends was just the thing to warm up the evening’s experience and make it well nigh perfect.
My only disappointment is that Mr. Mitchell appeared to disappear as soon as the concert was over, so it didn’t look like I would have the chance to introduce myself to him and thank him in person for the interview (as I had been able to do with Thomas Hampson last summer.) And then, maybe fifteen minutes after the concert ended and we were thinking about making our way up the hill and back to the shuttle, out on to the stage walked Brian Stokes Mitchell – and I got my 45 seconds of “face time” with Mr. Mitchell. He proved to be just as fun and gracious as he had been on the phone- and as I walked away, I realized that the first song sung that night, “Some Enchanted Evening,” was a perfect summation of the night.
pictured above: Brian Stokes Mitchell’s final bow