Voyage to Wien, presented by Sara Schabas and Daniel Norman at the Church of the Redeemer last night was a nicely constructed tribute in song to that city on the Danube.  Things kicked off wittily with Bernstein’s (well he did conduct the Vienna Phil) “I hate music” followed by nicely rendered accounts of varied songs by the Mahlers and Schubert before exploiting the performers connections with the church choir to bring members of the choir in for “Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit” from Brahm’s German Requiem.

We shifted gears a bit for Mozart’s “Deh! vieni, non tardar”, which seemed to fit Schabas’ voice particularly well.  I think maybe she’s maybe more comfortable as a singing actress than as a pure lieder singer.  This was rather reinforced by a charming account of the “Lippen Schweigen”; the concluding waltz/duet from Die Lustige Witwe, sung here with Michael Robert-Broder.

Then it was back to lighter stuff for the final set.  Gershwin’s “Someone to watch over me”, Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” with Sara acompanying herself  and  asort of doo-wop version of “Blue Moon” with members of the choir.

All kind of fun and it’s a very pretty church.