DWU choral director, wife to hold Valentine’s Day recital

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Sometimes the bad guy has more fun.

That’s the reason Dr. Clint Desmond, choral director at Dakota Wesleyan University, and his wife, Erin, decided to center this year’s Valentine’s Day recital on the less loveable characters of music.

“We’re No Angels,” a Valentine’s Day recital, will be performed by the Desmonds at 4 p.m. Sunday in Wagner Chapel on the DWU campus in Mitchell. The concert is free and open to the public.

They will perform arias, show tunes and art songs from the antagonist’s point of view. The repertoire will include excerpts from Ralph Vaughan William’s “Songs of Travel” and Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise,” as well as Richard Nixon’s aria from John Adams’ opera, “Nixon in China,” and “Don Giovanni” and “The Rake’s Progress.”

“The Valentine’s recital is a kind of spoof, of sorts,” Desmond said. “The music is very serious, but the subject is about characters who are not very lovable: wanderers, vagabonds, lotharios, devils, Richard Nixon. I thought it would be a fun change of pace to sing the songs from the antagonist’s perspective because, sometimes, the bad guy has more fun.”

Desmond said part of the reason for the switch-up is also that he has been developing his baritone range.

“I started singing more repertoires in the medium to medium-low range and found a great resonance in my voice in this range,” he said. “Plus, some of my favorite operatic characters are baritones: Don Giovanni, Figaro, Richard Nixon.”

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