Lawrence Brownlee: Rising
Warner Classics

No, Rising isn't a reference to Lawrence Brownlee's ascent in the opera world—all the evidence indicates that this renowned tenor and bel canto specialist has very much arrived; instead, Rising derives its title from the themes of uplift and rebirth that are the project's foundation. Deeply aware of the struggles African-Americans have endured and continue to face, Brownlee sought to create a vocal recital recording that would both acknowledge those struggles and celebrate the hard-fought gains that have been made.

Accompanied by American pianist Kevin J. Miller, the tenor augments newly commissioned works by African-American composers Damien Sneed, Brandon Spencer, Jasmine Barnes, Joel Thompson, and Shawn E. Okpebholo with ones by Margaret Bonds, Robert Owens, and Jeremiah Evans; consistent with the album theme, the songs draw for inspiration from renowned writers of the Harlem Renaissance, among them Alice Dunbar Nelson, Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson, and especially Langston Hughes—of the twenty-nine songs presented, seventeen feature words by the latter.

Having appeared in operas by Rossini, Bellini, Rameau, Donizetti, Mozart, and others, Brownlee has solidly secured a spot within the operatic firmament, but he also channels his energies into fervently advocating for diversity in the industry. He's toured extensively Cycles of My Being, a work that considers what it's like to be a Black male in America, and in 2020 initiated the weekly Facebook Live series, The Sitdown with LB, its focus conversations about the experience of being an African-American opera singer. He's sung at opera houses around the globe and been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including being asked to sing at Jessye Norman's funeral.

At album's start, Brownlee's bright tenor illuminates Sneed's stately “Beauty That Is Never Old,” the first of the composer's three songs featuring Johnson's words. Whereas joyous rapture is conveyed by the performers in the effervescent “The Gift to Sing,” “To America” delivers a wry reality-check in posing questions such as “How would you have us, as we are? Or sinking ‘neath the load we bear?” Three by Evans follow, from the melancholy reflections “April Song” (“Let the rain sing you a lullaby”) and “Lost Illusions” (“Oh, for the veils, for the veils of my youth”) to the haunted “Southern Mansion” and its “Chains of bondmen dragging on the ground.”

With Miller's tinkling accenting Brownlee's supple vocal, a pronounced lyrical quality infuses Spencer's “I Know My Soul”; his “Dance of Love,” on the other hand, adds infectious swing to the release. An album highlight is definitely Bonds' Songs of the Seasons cycle, with all four parts built on texts by Hughes. Contrast abounds when the subtly theatrical meditation “Poeme d'Automne” is paired with the exuberant celebration of rebirth that is “Young Love in Spring.” Okpebholo's represented by a single song, but his delicate “Romance” imbues McKay's words with a real-time intimacy so naked it almost feels invasive. Singing in an uppermost register, Brownlee's here at his most vulnerable and tender.

Owens gets the last word in the form of two song cycles, Desire and Silver Rain, both grounded in poems by Hughes. Particularly memorable are the second work's elegiac “Night Song” and boisterous “In time of silver rain.” Emotions run the gamut on the recording, from weariness (Thompson's “Supplication”) and yearning (Barnes' “Peace”) to romantic bliss (Bonds' “Summer Storm”) and humble devotion (Barnes' “Invocation”).

July 2023