Prima la musica, poi le parole

Enchanted evening

Search engine serendipity is a dangerous and beautiful thing. I wasn't looking for travel suggestions. It was just that I got to thinking one evening, a month or so ago, about Peter Coleman-Wright and Mahler's Rückert-Lieder. He sang them in the Netherlands earlier this year, a fact which did register with me at the time; but it wasn't until much more recently — under the combined influence of his magical performances in Peter Grimes, my own growing obsession with the songs themselves, and the fact of both Peter and Cheryl having chosen recordings of "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" for play during separate radio interviews — that I began to realise that this was something I wished quite desperately to hear. So I ventured into internetland with the faint hope that that April concert might have been preserved on record somehow, and promptly stumbled upon Ensemble Liaison's 2009 calendar, which listed a concert in which the group would, among other things, accompany Peter Coleman-Wright in a chamber arrangement of the Rückert-Lieder. In Melbourne.

My first, sensible thought was "No, I really mustn't." Ha. You'd think I'd know myself better than that by now, wouldn't you? And yet I managed to spend a good half hour convinced that I couldn't possibly, until finally I made that short, obvious and joyful leap to "Yes, I absolutely must", and that was that. Now I'm amazed I even hesitated for that long. If it had been any other repertoire, then perhaps I could have resisted. But I could think of no better hands in which to place the responsibility of my first live Rückert-Lieder, so I booked, and as a result, spent Thursday evening swooning in Federation Square.

For a start, the venue was fantastic, suitably intimate, and all glassed in so that you could look out to the river — and the sunset — behind the performers. It's quite something to see the backdrop change of its own accord like that: we had Mendelssohn by daylight, Schubert's "Notturno" by twilight, and by the time we reached "Um Mitternacht", night had obligingly fallen. The audience behaved beautifully, too — not a cough to be heard (I stifled my own at one point, quite traumatically) and barely any muttering. There was free wine to be had before, during intermission and afterwards, and a competition running to win even more of it. Clarinettist David Griffiths' informal introductions to the pieces were both charming and hilarious. 

Forgive me as I gloss over the purely instrumental portions of the program. It isn't any sort of slight. They were lovely. The "Notturno" was quite mesmerising, and Griffiths's star turn in Brahms's second Clarinet Sonata was a joy to behold. The Mendelssohn Konzertstück which opened the program was quite entertaining, as was the story about dumplings which preceded it. These performances deserve more words, I know; but true to form, I'm saving all my words for the singer.

Both Ensemble Liaison's website and Ticketmaster promised a bracket of Liszt songs as well as the Mahler. This was already a mouthwatering prospect, but imagine my happiness when I picked up a program and discovered that Liszt was out and Richard Strauss was in. I'm sure my stars were in alignment — not one, but two (or one might even say three) musical obsessions in a single recital. Better still, the Strauss bracket began with "Cäcilie", a song I adore, and which Peter delivered with all the irresistible ardour I could have wished for. Bliss enough on its own, really, and yet the three songs which followed were somehow lovelier still. One needed neither printed translations nor any German vocabulary (even though I was equipped with both) to grasp the varied facets of love which these four songs depicted. Every subtlety was ingrained in that incandescent voice and written on his face. There were phrases in the middle two ("Breit, über mein Kopf" and "Schön sind, doch kalt") which seemed to flow silkily on and on, as if he never breathed at all — or was that me not breathing? Hard to believe this was the same language that, just a few months ago, he spat out so venomously as Beethoven's Don Pizarro; now those same Germanic syllables were all tenderness, all velvety warmth, and then, in "Nichts", all ringing jollity and good humour. My Strauss obsession and my soprano obsession go hand in hand, and understandably so, but if I needed proof that Straussian gorgeousness exists beyond the treble clef — this was it. (And then the encore — which nearly didn't happen, but we clapped loudly and made it happen — was "Zueignung", which I love even more than "Cäcilie" and in fact possibly more than any other Strauss song except "Allerseelen", "Morgen" and the Four Last. Sigh and double sigh.)

Brahms, interval and Schubert intervened, and then it was Mahler time. What can I say? To have songs to which I'm so attached in a sense introduced to me by a singer who also means a lot to me is an amazing experience — rather like having had my first and second live Four Last Songs sung by Yvonne Kenny and Cheryl Barker respectively. I could not have asked for a more heavenly introduction. Peter sang and I floated. He mingled radiant introspection with vivid expressivity, his interpretations imbued with a depth and vulnerability which were completely captivating. The soft sweetness of "Ich atmet' einen linden Duft", the exultation of "Liebst du um Schönheit", the electricity of "Um Mitternacht", all these were realised with sincerity and amber-veined lyricism. "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" is a song I've recently come to think of as quite simply the most beautiful song ever written, a conviction which Peter's searching and sublime rendition did nothing to shake. He gave these five extraordinary songs exactly the treatment they deserved: no trickery, no fuss —  just open-hearted, sensitive and desperately beautiful singing whose glow stayed upon us even in the silences between.

The list of singers I've travelled specifically to hear is very short. The list of male singers I've travelled specifically to hear is even shorter — it's just Peter. My horizons, you see, are broadening. It's true I was slow on the uptake. I was brought up on sopranos and mezzos, and so I took my time coming around properly to male voices. But these days I think I'm as swayable by male voices as female ones; in fact, when it comes to Australian singers, I think my preferences are if anything a little bit skewed in favour of the baritones of the species. I might not yet be at the point of flying across the world in pursuit of Simon Keenlyside, but a trip to Melbourne to melt in the presence of Peter Coleman-Wright? That I can happily manage. And really, if anybody was going to blaze this particular trail, it had to be Peter. I may originally have been his fan mostly by association, but that's been changing for some time — and after his stunning turn as Balstrode, I'd have joined the club no matter who his wife was. He's a glorious artist, a total delight; and if you ask me, as somebody did, whether this recital was worth the trip, my answer is — a hundred times over.

Dawn

Don't you just want to hit me sometimes? I know I do. It took me until just two weeks before the concert to take myself in hand and realise that, while she has never been my favourite soprano in the world, I really had very little excuse for not taking the opportunity to hear Dawn Upshaw live in concert. I mean, honestly: what was I thinking? Dawn and I have had all kinds of artistic differences over the years, but facts are facts: she's a hugely important singer with a massive following, beloved of many people whose opinions I respect, and she was singing in the city where I live.

There's a bit of heresy in the above, and I suppose you noticed it. Giving Dawn Upshaw anything but awestruck praise is not, in certain circles at least, the done thing. That's as may be, but it's been my misfortune (althought that's perhaps too strong a word) to hear her almost exclusively in repertoire for which few have ever claimed her to be ideal anyway.  And reprehensible though it may be, I've just never made the effort to seek her out in the music she's made for, the music often quite literally made for her: the contemporary works composed specifically for her, and other bits of repertoire which, by all reports, may as well have been.

So you get the picture. I've never been a Dawn Upshaw fan — far from it — but to paraphrase Britten's comment about Verdi, I've always accepted this as more my failing than hers. But for all my personal bias, lurking in the background is always a willingness to be converted. I can quibble and moan all I like about this singer or that, but loving sopranos — not disliking them — is still what I'm best at.  With that in mind, I shoved my silly objections into a corner and booked myself for her Valentine's Day appearance with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

For all my excitement about the City Recital Hall's new pick-your-own-seat booking system, I didn't realise until I arrived that I'd placed myself right in the front row: far closer to the Feet Of than a non-devotee such as myself really deserved to be. But front row seats at Angel Place, while a little hard on the neck, aren't nearly as atrocious as those at the Concert Hall. It was an excellent place to be, with only the heads of the wind players out of view.

Since this is not a Proper Review, and since this is an opera blog, I hope you'll indulge or forgive me if I pass with indecent haste over the non-vocal portions of the evening. There others far better than I at praising such things, although I will say that after a fine but not astounding performance of Mozart's Symphony no. 29, the Sinfonia concertante was something else entirely and very nearly the musical highlight of the entire evening, due in no small part to the talents of principal violist Christopher Moore (whose haircut bears, shall we say, scant resemblance to the photo accompanying the above-linked bio). The newly commissioned piece, James Ledger's Restless Night was weird but enjoyable enough, its most notable feature in a sense being that it was composed to celebrate Richard Tognetti's twentieth anniversary with the ACO: a milestone difficult to credit given Tognetti's preturnaturally freshfaced appearance. I'm certain there's a portrait of him ageing rapidly in somebody's attic. (Either that, or the anonymously donated Guarneri was actually from Mephistopheles.)

And so, to Dawn. I'll save you the suspense. This is not a Road to Damascus story. It is, however, a story of softening, of a shift in feeling and of a genuine upswing in respect.

Watching Dawn Upshaw is not like watching your average singer. There is something unusually personable about her manner on stage, a sense that what she's engaged in is not so much performance as a sharing of music among friends — friends who include the orchestra, the audience and the singer herself. She moves with the music around her, whether she's singing or not. Her deep involvement with, and strong connection to, the whole artistic and performing process are obvious and immediately engaging. She is a serene, generous and seemingly wholly un-selfconscious presence — every tap of her toes, every hint of a tear, every radiant smile is genuine, with not a whiff of affectation.

That same sincerity is present in her singing, and I think perhaps it took the live experience to make me understand that. Her voice is what it is. She'll do anything with it, she'll take it to extremes if necessary, but what I suspect she'll never do is use it in a way that's artificial, in a way that's not true to her own sensibilities. And there, in recorded form, is perhaps the problem I've faced with Dawn over the years: her sensibilities and mine have not always aligned, but in her own, sweet way, she's never ever going to give way. Neither should she.

Her first item was Golijov's Three Songs for soprano and orchestra. This tour marks the Australian premiere of these songs, although they've been available on disc since 2007. Nevertheless, I would imagine they were unfamiliar to many in the audience. For me it's a different story: these songs are my old, old friends — just not in Dawn's voice.  I met them several years ago, courtesy of the gorgeous New Zealand soprano Patricia Wright. I heard her sing them via radio broadcast and then later in live performance, and was privileged enough to be given a recording of that broadcast by the diva herself. I loved those songs and listened to them again and again. I'm sure you know how that kind of musical imprinting works. These songs were written for Dawn Upshaw and her performance of them is all that's radiant, true and beautiful, but the fact remains that that tiny corner of my heart marked "Golijov Three Songs" will always be the property of Patricia. However, it was marvellous to hear them live once again, and to be reminded of their particular magic. "How slow the wind" remains my favourite of the three, and Dawn's delivery of it was quite devastating. 

She has a wonderful way of quietly but unshakeably taking possession of whatever she is singing. The Golijov songs seem hers automatically, by virtue of having been written for her, but the sense of ownership was at least as powerful in her next item, a selection of Bartok's Hungarian folksongs. I said the Sinfonia concertante was nearly my highlight of the evening. It was beaten out by Dawn's inspired performance of these varied, mesmerising and exquisite songs. There were translations printed, but my programme remained on the floor: you didn't need a word of Hungarian to grasp the spirit and emotions at play. The extraordinary malleability of her voice, and its capacity for such a wealth of colours, was especially evident here, and I understood more than ever before Golijov's oft-quoted comment about her "rainbow of a voice". From deep, melodious moans of agony to infectious Gypsy brilliance, she encompassed all the wide-ranging vocal and emotional demands of these songs with total and thrilling commitment.

She finished with a single song, according to Tognetti (who spoke between items) a sort of programmed encore: Richard Strauss' "Morgen". It's one of my favourite songs in all the world, sitting alongside Strauss' "Beim Schlafengehen" and "Allerseelen" as the piece of music most likely to turn me into a puddle of tears. It's also a song which I've heard sung by many of my most beloved singers, including live performances by both Yvonne Kenny and Cheryl Barker. In spirit, Dawn and this heavenly song are perfect for one another, and her performance of it was as moving and as beautiful as one could wish for. But I can't deny that I prefer a different voice for it, a voice more inherently Straussian, and yes, ideally, since it's a song I tend to take so personally, a voice with particular personal meaning for me: Cheryl, or Yvonne, or Barbara, or Lucia. Dawn's singing did not in any way diminish the perfection of the song, though, and I ended up as misty-eyed as she did — how could you not?

And that was that, though I was hoping for an encore and would gladly have listened to her for longer. I didn't emerge as a Brand New #1 Fan, I didn't buy a CD or queue to have it signed. But nor did I emerge feeling exactly as I did when I arrived. I've read praise of Dawn Upshaw for years and years, but it's only now, having shared in the gifts and beauty which have made such an impression on so many people for so long, that I can begin properly to understand what it's all about. She is not a singer I see myself going crazy for, but for the first time, I can see how and why a person might — and there's no doubt that I will cherish the memory of this performance for a long time to come.

Puccini at Customs House

There's intimate, and there's intimate. We praise the intimate nature of performances in the City Recital Hall. Even the Opera Theatre seems pretty intimate compared to a grand American opera house. Intimate is a relative concept.

Intimate is one thing. Pacific Opera's fundraising concert last night, billed as "An Intimate Puccini Evening" was quite another. The Barnet Long Room at Customs House is a pretty tiny venue to begin with, seating only 160 in what they call "theatre style". For last night's concert, I doubt it sat even that many. We entered via the stage, stepping down into the seating area to find only four or five long rows arranged lengthways in the centre, facing a stage not much larger than a reasonably large dining room table. 

This was intimate and then some, the sort of set-up where it feels almost inappropriate to sit in the front row. Almost. I did, of course, sit in the front row. Front and centre. Hardly surprising, since I am always a front row kind of girl, but even less so when you realise that this intimate evening was to be shared with the extraordinary Cheryl Barker and her gorgeous husband, Peter Coleman-Wright. Masterfully accompanied by Pacific Opera's music director Andrew Greene, they sang excerpts from Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Manon Lescaut, interspersed with shorter pieces from Pacific Opera alumni, James Roser and Penelope Mills, and commentary and anecdotes from the always engaging Moffatt Oxenbould. 

Moffatt opened proceedings, praising, before anything else, the extraordinary acoustic of this unusual venue. He was clearly excited as he explained to us that they had discovered, in first trying the room out, that it produced a "rehearsal ambience", that live, resonant acoustic which performers always strive to reproduce in the more cavernous space of an opera theatre, but which, in its raw, ideal state, is not often experienced by us mere punters. He promised us something "quite extraordinary", underlining repeatedly the intensity of what was to come. His words could also have been construed as a warning to the faint hearted. 

Intense was putting it mildly. Incredible acoustic, small space, singers in full flight and an audience so close that even those in the back row were probably not much further from the stage than a front row audience at the opera house would be. It's not every day you experience a concert in such conditions, and thank god for that — this was magnificent, but if all performances were like this, it would be a health hazard. As it was, the sheer power and richness of sound might have proved a bit overpowering for some tastes. The concert might have been on a very small scale, but the performances certainly weren't. If you loved the voices in question, this was heaven; if you didn't, well, it might have been hard going. 

But I can't imagine anybody could have felt anything but love, or at the very least, admiration, for these four voices. Penelope Mills was all sweetness and light, particularly touching as Mimi in the duet with Marcello (one of only two points in La bohème which soften my stony heart) and James Roser's smooth baritone was lovely to hear. 

And then there were Cheryl and Peter. Are we spoilt, or what? I know it's standard Antipodean practice to gaze, green-eyed, at the concert schedules of Paris, New York, London and Milan but there are moments when such jealousy is left in the dust. This was one of them. There was nowhere I would rather have been last night than Circular Quay, sitting barely five feet away from the one soprano I'd rather hear than any other in the world, listening, awestruck, as she blazed her way through the kind of "Vissi d'arte" which, had I been hidden away in a big, dark theatre, would have made an embarrassing mess of me. The fact that all I had to do to get there was finish work, change my shoes and take a two minute train ride just adds to the preposterous good fortune of it all. 

They began with Butterfly, the scene between Sharpless and Cio Cio San. What a luxury to have Peter as Sharpless. I love his voice more all the time, partly by association, it's true, but mostly because he's fabulous. He's one of few baritones whose voices I think I would recognise immediately. Nobody else sounds quite like Peter, and nothing sounds quite so good as Peter did in this particular venue. And if we're speaking of luxuries, the greatest of all is to have such an intimate audience with the Butterfly of Cheryl Barker, one of the Butterflies of her generation. Adjectives are redudant, she just owns this role, and that's that. Her "Che tua madre dovra" was wonderfully hard to take at such close range, and when she mimed the sword-in-neck on "Morte!", I flinched. 

Then Tosca, the duet between Scarpia and Tosca. The woman who, only ten or fifteen minutes earlier, had been such an earnest and finely wrought Butterfly, was instantly a fiery, imperious Tosca, so terrifyingly real that you'd scarcely believe it was the same woman, in the same dress. And yet she was, and she was...oh, I don't know. Supply your own superlative. Peter was indecently smooth and suave, quite genuinely lecherous in his advances even if they were on his own wife. Peter and Cheryl, it has to be said, do chemistry remarkably well, be it this kind or the Arabella kind. Their duetting was fantastic, but Cheryl's "Vissi d'arte" was on another plane — despite all of us breathing down her neck, and without sets, costumes or more than a few minutes of context, she was utterly, thrillingly in character, singing those oh so familiar words with revelatory conviction and that steely yet graceful voice of hers, the one which slices my heart into a thousand besotted shards. 

Finally, a fragment of Manon Lescaut, truly only a fragment as they'd opted to drop Manon's "In quelle trine morbide" and begin from "Poiche tu vuoi saper". A shame to miss out on the aria, but just quietly, I love the subsequent duet even better. It's included on the duets disc they recorded for ABC Classics, and I never tire of hearing Cheryl's impassioned "Vieni! Vieni", so it was bliss to hear it (and the rest) in the flesh. Peter was a beautiful big brother, and Cheryl an irresistible Manon, moving convincingly from coquetry to sincere affection and concern. As if I needed another reason to look forward to her debut in the role next season. 

And that was it. No encores, partly, I suspect, because the set-up in the theatre meant it took them most of their ovation just to get backstage again. My calculations tell me it was a two hour concert, so I suppose it must have been, but it felt quite a lot shorter. I could happily have taken a lot more of the same. Then again, just that "Vissi d'arte" should sustain me for quite a while yet. So, thank god for Pacific Opera, and for their need to fundraise. Philanthropy never felt so good. 

Luck

"Cheryl Barker recital"
"Cancellation due to illness"

Two phrases which, in combination, should spell misery and deep disappointment. I expect circumstances to conspire against me when it comes to singers. If there's a bug to be caught, my soprano will catch it. Not that it has happened so very often — but the few cancellations I've been through have traumatised me enough to make me live in terror of a repeat. The sight of Adrian Collette edging his way on to the opera theatre stage before a performance causes my little heart no end of palpitations. When he showed up before an Arabella, I was stricken; when I was assured it wasn't Cheryl who was sick, I cried real tears of relief.

So imagine my joy and delight to find that for once, illness and consequent cancellation were to work decidedly in my favour.

On Monday I went to a recital at Angel Place by Cheryl Barker, Peter Coleman-Wright and Piers Lane. We were told beforehand that Peter was singing through a nasty cold. He coped quite remarkably, but there was no doubting he was not a well man. Evidently the cold got worse. The trio was due to repeat the programme last night. I, being me, had tickets for both. And on Thursday morning I had the news, from a colleague very much In The Know that Peter had been obliged to cancel his appearance in the second recital. How would the gap be filled. "Piers will play more. And Cheryl will sing more." [emphasis mine, clearly]

Never in a million years would I wish ill health upon the charming Peter Coleman-Wright. But unexpected extra Cheryl Barker? Yes, thanks, I'll wish for that.

From there my good fortune spread. I had a seat in the second row, right at the far edge of the theatre. But my section of the row was unoccupied and I was able to move to an aisle seat, with not a single head blocking the way between myself and Cheryl. Even when, during intermission, the person whose seat I had stolen turned up, he was more than happy for me to keep it. There was even a woman handing out free chocolates at intermission.

None of the above compares, however, to the supreme felicity of simply hearing Cheryl Barker sing. In the end, her bonus tracks amounted to just two extra Lieder at the begining and a different encore; but what happy bonuses they were. Just for me — or so I choose to think — she opened with my favourite Schubert song, an ardent "Gretchen am Spinnrade". I have a history of obsession with this song. I love it. I especially love "und ach...sein Kuss!" and shan't soon forget the exquisite anguish in Cheryl's voice as she reached that crucial moment, und ach...the way she lingered and lingered on that final "sssss"! Swiftly on Gretchen's heels, another big favourite of mine — Schumann's divine "Widmung", fabulously sung. Be still, my beating heart.

Naturally we were denied the duets by Mendelssohn and Schumann which were sung on Monday. Piers Lane filled the gap. Just to add to my run of luck, he played Liszt's transcription of the slow movement of Beethoven 7, followed by Schumann's Variations upon that same slow movement. Beethoven 7 is a current mild fixation of mine and thus one of the pieces of music I was most inclined to hear.

Cheryl returned with the same solo bracket she'd sung on Monday. Five songs by Richard Strauss. If you're me, which you mightn't be, but which I definitely am, there's really not much in life better than a crazily gorgeous soprano singing Strauss from just a few metres away. All of them songs I already knew and loved, chosen perfectly for me and for her voice.

In "Cäcilie" I expected a sort of desperate hunger — "if only, if only" and so forth. But both the poem and Strauss' setting of it, as Cheryl explained in her lovely spoken introduction, were love tokens. Strauss gave the song to scary Pauline the night before their wedding. So Cheryl took it in this spirit, made it a jubilant affair, an expression of longing very shortly to be fulfilled. From expansive rapture to perfect serenity — "Morgen". It's a song like no other, except perhaps its cousins, the Four Last Songs. She was devastatingly gentle, floating down to a soft, soft landing before moving on. When she did move on, it was to "Wiegenlied", which on Monday she had dedicated to her son. Again, magnificent. Not that I would dream of sleeping while somebody was singing like this to me. She flitted, flirted and fluttered her way through the romantic antics of "Ständchen", her instinctive gift for acting illuminating the little scene perfectly. And then came the clincher. "Allerseelen". Of the five, this was the song I was least familiar with, though I've heard it from time to time. I didn't know exactly what it dealt with until Cheryl explained. Then, when she sang, and the remains of my high school German went to work, I understood. On Monday it was amazing. On Thursday it truly tore me apart. She sang this in a manner more akin to a grand scena than an art song and the result was extraordinary. She sang "Stell auf dem Tisch die duftenden Reseden", and I saw the table and the flowers; and saw her see them. When she reached the song's stricken climax, her body bent with the pain of it. It was a moment apart; no plots, props or costumes but as characterful and moving as anything I've seen her do on the operatic stage.

Thanks heaven for intermission. I needed a chance to recover. That was followed by more Piers, Brahms this time. Then Cheryl, with an abbreviated version of Songlines of the Heart's Desire, a song cycle written for Cheryl and Peter by Richard Mills and receiving its premiere on this tour. Maybe it is a terrible thing to say, but I liked the Thursday version better. The songs are attractive enough if not masterpieces, but there was bit of sameishness in hearing eight of them together. Honestly, what I liked best about them was not the songs themselves but the way they made Cheryl sound. True to form, her voice was growing warmer and brighter as the evening progresses, and the wide-ranging but perfectly tailored writing of Mills' songs made for some truly wonderful Cheryl moments. I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that one of the three songs she sang on Thursday ("My woman's transparency") was actually one of Peter's from Monday. She also pulled off a nice version of the final duet, sans partner.

On Monday night, they finished with two duets from Kurt Weill's (justifiably) little known operetta about Benvenuto Cellini, The Firebrand of Florence. The first, "You're far too near me", is a dialogue and would be impossible to do solo. Not so the second, so Cheryl gave us a passionate rendition of the slightly treacly "There'll be life, love and laughter" — not Weill's best moment, and definitely not Ira Gershwin's either, but as stated, All Cheryl is Good Cheryl. She followed with another Weill song, one she and Peter had sung as their encore on Monday — "Mackie Messer". Yes, Mack the Knife, sung with a very Weimar mix of seductive insouciance and black-hearted snarl. Without making too much effort to scale back the operatic scope of her voice, she nonetheless fell beguilingly into the cabaret idiom. I'd love to hear her in more of this sort of music.

Her encore was a surprise. I saw the disintegrating piece of sheet music brought to the piano and thought, what on earth can this be? It was Edward Charles' "When I have sung my songs". A parlor song, not that you'd have known it from Cheryl's searing, heartfelt delivery, which raised what could have been a little bit twee to a credo on the level of "Vissi d'arte". She's magic that way.

Bryn Terfel

On Monday I decided all of a sudden that I would, after all, go to see Bryn Terfel sing with the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra the following evening. Because unlike most normal, sane people, I saw the ads for this concert months ago and decided not to go. Until at the last minute, it occured to me how very strange this decision really was. So I got the last ticket in the back row of the stalls — which is, incidentally, an incredibly good seat.

They opened with the Figaro overture, impressively tight and taut and buzzing with energy but oh, I'm sorry, too fast. I mean of course it needs to be played at a bit of a gallop, it ought to be fun — but this time it all just went by too fast to hold on to, done before I managed to catch up. Anyway, that was that and then there was Bryn. And I had to keep reminding myself that I'd never seen him live before, because he just seemed so familiar, so personable — hard to remember that it's someone you know from recordings and films, rather than some nice Welsh man off the street. What a charmer. He sang four arias, and spoke to the audience in between them all, making a seamless transition from high artistry to casual banter and back again. You can't resist him in either capacity, whether he's singing Mozart gorgeously or just talking. At one point, he'd just begun to speak when a woman in the audience sneezed — "bless you" he said, without missing a beat, and won an ovation for it. Leaving aside all his talent, expressive gifts, technical mastery etc etc, he just comes across as the most genuinely nice person you could hope to meet. And you do feel just that at the end, that you've met him. Am I really saying all this about a bass baritone?

But let's get to the singing. I've always liked Bryn but never taken too huge an interest until very recently — his Mozart CD is fast becoming a favourite of mine. On Tuesday night he sang two Mozart concert arias and wonder of wonders, lived up to and indeed exceeded the promise of the studio recordings. 'Cosi dunque tradirsci...Aspri rimorsi atroci" was the first, and wonderful; but the second, "Io ti lascio, o cara, addio" was something else entirely, radiant and heartbreaking. Baritone pianissimi are not something I've ever really though much about, but he was using them to entrancing effect, singing with such sensitivity and care that he imbued this conventional little four line farewell with a dignified poignancy on the level of the Countess Almaviva. After the Mozart came Wagner — a beautifully floating "O du mein holder Abendstern" and magnificent, majestic "Die Frist ist um". This last was really the hit of the night — having sung the first three arias in more or less straight concert style, for this he added a few movements, a simple gesture here and there, and I understood more that I ever really have just how compelling he must be in serious roles — as Wotan, Scarpia and so on. It was a brilliant, powerful way to finish his half of the programme, a half which was so riveting and satisfying that it felt like a whole. Before he left us for good we were given, thankfully, two encores, in which he managed to fill his swooning audience with even more adoring passion. Seats had been sold for this performance in the choir and organ galleries, which are behind the stage, with only a back view of the singer — so when he returned with his first encore, a Welsh song, he hummed the first verse to the main part of the hall, then turned around and sang the rest of it straight to them, conquering them completely I'm sure. After that came "Deh vieni alla finestra", sung as he strolled around the hall with rose in hand, serenading various women as he went before finally choosing one to give the flower to. In the wrong hands it could be cheesy, but not here. There's just not an affected or artificial bone in his body, and he manages to be simultaneously a nice down-to-earth guy and a genuinely gifted artist.

Everybody else in the world knows this already, I know. I did too, I suppose, but it took this experience for me to really appreciate it. He really is wonderful and I'm so glad I went after all.

Marama Hall

Today's Marama Hall concert was my first since July, and rewarded my patience with a programme nicely biased towards the voice, a pleasant change from the usual fair balance between piano and vocal items. (I'm just being mean. Otago's pianists are wonderful and I'd never wish them away.) The one piano item on the programme, Weber's Variations on a Russian Theme, had a couple of points in its favour, too: it was very nicely played (by Cara Chung) and it didn't depict water. Brilliant.

Attending a recital with no idea who's performing or what they'll sing is always a slight risk but it does open the way to some delightful surprises. Like sitting down, opening the programme and discovering I was about to hear my favourite local mezzo sing Brahms' Zigeunerlieder. Claire Barton's name on the programme is enough to keep me happy regardless but I also have a particular affection for these songs — during my Grace Bumbry period I listened obsessively to her recordings of them, and though it's admittedly been a while since I revisited them, they've stayed with me.  Claire sang them gorgeously, with humour, tenderness and excellent German. The other female voice on the programme impressed me rather less. With worryingly strident tone, Fiona Henry (who has sounded far sweeter in the past) delivered three items not so much to the audience as to some point in the distance above our heads, with a sameness of expression which failed to distinguish between Purcell ("Come all ye songsters"), Walton ("Daphne") and Victor Herbert ("Art is calling for me") and didn't suit any of them.

For Michael Gray, I begin a new paragraph. He deserves the honour and others besides. Michael gave us the first four songs from Schumann's Liederkreis. This was supremely sensitive and hauntingly beautiful singing.  The devastating loneliness of "In der Fremde" was as magically captured as the joy of "Die Stille", "Intermezzo" genuinely touching. "Waldesgespräch" really did come across as dialogue, expressively and convincingly delivered — the rush of audible fear on the words "Du bist die Hexe Lorelei" sent shivers down my spine. Sitting here writing this all I want is to hear Michael sing these songs again. Not that's not true — I'd also like to hear him sing the other eight in the cycle. And I'm biased. But that doesn't matter, because if he'd been a new name today the effect would have been the same — enchanting.

Venere bella

Some things just are, and Yvonne Kenny is. Life was life, then there she was and life was different. All that she is to me she was in that first moment, a glitzy operetta entrance which in itself held no hint of all that lay ahead and yet it was all there somehow. I knew almost nothing of her before and hardly knew more at the end of that evening but still my fate was sealed then and there. Though I couldn't have guessed then that things would be as they are now, there was never any chance they could be otherwise:  no crossroads, no wavering, no doubt. Obviously much has changed and developed. But never has it been about being convinced, or reassured, or proved right. I haven't needed it proved to me that the woman who captured me in such a flash had infinitely more in her than that gorgeous Hanna Glawari — that she was not just an Australian audience favourite with a lovely voice but an artist of rare intelligence, sensitivity and depth, and one with a musical Midas touch, leaving every piece of music she sings richer and more meaningful than before and in the process making it sound too breathtakingly beautiful to be believed. And every performance, every minute, every note, have proved just that — A Touch of Venus proves it beyond a doubt — but once again I say, I felt it all, if unconsciously, right from the start. The travelling, the countless recordings, the lengthy reviews and the lengthier outbursts of florid praise, the acts of devotion and divadienst: all that's beside the point. This isn't about merely a favourite voice — they're easy enough to come by — or about mad fanaticism. It's about an amazing human being whose existence brightens my own.

To the recital itself, A Touch of Venus. This is an incredible programme, so full of Yvonne, of what she does so beautifully and what's so beautiful about her — and also eerily full of me. Music I learnt from her and have only ever heard her sing; music I've known for years and have never heard her sing, but now it too belongs to her. I could catalogue at length the universe of resonances and associations and delights at work for me in this programme but perhaps I'll just select a few.

Hahn's "A Chloris". When, many months ago, I accidentally discovered this was on the programme for A Touch of Venus, it was a song I'd never ever heard. After that it suddenly seemed to turn up all over the place — and the beauty of the song itself, coupled with the knowledge I'd eventually hear Yvonne sing it, have meant I've never once made it through dry-eyed. The first bars of the piano part begin and I'm gone. And being there tonight, at long last hearing her sing the song I've imagined in her voice all along,  and exceeding every one of my imaginings, was a moment of utter bliss

Victoria Wood's "Crush". I've long been a fan of Victoria Wood and especially her songs. I'd never heard "Crush" before however. The lyrics are here. Written with Victoria's Northern accent in mind, Yvonne gives it instead a Sydney schoolgirl twang, a stroke of genius. But what makes it particularly striking is that she captures the emotion with such sweetness and such delicate perfection that the song is simultaneously hilarious and truly touching. A comedy song light years from her standard repertoire and yet it's one of the most captivating moments of the evening. And what a treat to hear her for once with a rool Strine accent!

"O sleep, why dost thou leave me". Special for me in the first place as it comes from Semele, my first opera. Even more special because, juxtaposed with words on philandering from a nineteenth-century etiquette manual, she lifts it out of neoclassical mythology and creates a new and earthbound context, more personal and heartbreaking than anything your standard spoilt Semele could muster.

"La delaïssado" and "O waly waly", sung side by side with only the slightest pause between. If any one part of the programme stands on its own as a special creation in its own right, it's this poignant scene. The shift from Occitan to English is barely noticeable and she sings with such exquisite beauty that Hamer Hall and everyone in it — indeed the whole world — fall away and there's only her.

In honesty I could sit and write a paragraph (or several) about every single song I heard her sing tonight, and probably as much again about the texts interwoven with the music. But no, I'll stop here. Enough now to say what I feel every day, what I write here often enough (too often perhaps) but which never stops being true and so bears repeating. In my life I've encountered few people so extraordinary. Her grace, her passion and her generosity inspire and uplift me always. She floors me, and I adore her.

Charlotte Ellett at Marama Hall

I went on Wednesday to my first Marama Hall lunchtime recital of the semester, a recital by visiting Welsh soprano Charlotte Ellett. On the programme — what a dream — three of my very favourite song composers: Strauss, Poulenc and William Walton. And Schubert.

She opened with the Schubert, establishing from the first an easy rapport with the audience. Her attention to the text is meticulous, her diction impeccable and each song brought with it an individualised and credible characterisation. Some slight shortness of breath early on suggested we were not hearing this voice at its absolute best, but she sang beautifully nevertheless. Of the three songs in the bracket, the third, "Du bist die Ruh" was the loveliest, glowing and tender. "Kennst du das Land" was impressive also, the transition from wistful nostalgia to urgent longing and back again stylishly executed.

Three Strauss songs followed, beginning with "Morgen". Personally I wonder at the wisdom of the placing this song at the beginning of a bracket: moving immediately into other songs seems too abrupt a return to normal, everyday life. "Morgen" isn't quite like other songs, or even like a song at all; voice and piano combine to create something far more than the sum of its parts. Its beginning feels merely like our entry into a moment, a world, which was already happening; when the music stops it seems somehow to continue — so the song, I think, is best surrounded by as much silence as possible, left to sit on its own as the unique little miracle that it is. Enough of me: back to Charlotte Ellett. Placement aside, "Morgen" was attractively sung, but at a pace perhaps a touch more slow and tranquil than she could quite sustain. The rather more action filled "Das Rosenband" was much more successful and "Die Nacht" the evocative highlight of the three.

Poulenc is a relatively recent vocal fixation of mine and the truth is, I've heard relatively few of his songs — but the fact remains that every piece of his vocal music I hear, I love. Without fail, so far at least. The two songs here were no exception. The torrent of cabaret French in "Fêtes galantes" was not the most melodious thing but great fun nonetheless, and kudos to Mlle Ellett for articulating it all so well. "C" was utterly gorgeous, maybe the loveliest moment of the entire recital, and a song I'll need to hear again. (Hear my prayer, divine Véronique...)

Finally came William Walton's three settings of texts by Edith Sitwell. Now these hold a particularly special place in my heart. Yvonne Kenny recorded the complete songs of William Walton (and Constant Lambert) for Etcetera in 1992 and that disc is, were I forced to choose, the one recording I would keep in my life over all others. For me, the single most beautiful recording by anyone of any music ever, if such an absolute statement is possible; and although nobody's renditions of these songs could ever come close to rivalling Yvonne's, it's nevertheless a treat (and a rare one) to hear them in live performance. That said, the truth is these songs were the weak link of the recital. Though I've no doubt it's within Charlotte Ellett's power to tame them, she hasn't done so yet: she sang with a music stand and depended quite heavily upon it. I don't think a music stand need necessarily provide too significant a distraction but in this instance it definitely did. These songs, with their twisting, flamboyant melodies and fabulously bizarre texts ("Daphne" is clear enough but I've long since given up trying to understand every word of the other two) need to spring into life with as much apparent spontaneity as possible: their glorious unpredictability is muted when their technical side is so clearly in evidence. The lilting "Daphne" was not too drastically effected by this, but in "Through Gilded Trellises" and "Old Sir Faulk", where things start to get very strange, Ellett seemed insecure with both text and music and the songs, particularly "Old Sir Faulk", suffered as a result. However I don't want to be unremittingly negative: there were plenty of beautiful moments and as I say, though she doesn't own them yet, I see no reason why she shouldn't one day. 

Throughout this recital my recurring thought was, she's good here, but she must be fantastic in opera. Warm, engaging, dramatically aware and with a voice which, though always attractive, blossoms particularly beautifully in passages of excitement and forte ecstasy. Her single encore proved me right: a simply stunning "Quando m'en vo" which for me outdid all which had preceded it. The recital was an enjoyable one — but the next time I hear Charlotte Ellett I'd like it to be in opera, which, so it would seem, is where she truly shines.

Eccomi alfine in London

The trip was beyond exhausting but I've been here five days now. Two evenings at Holland Park for Fedora, which we'll get to in due course, but let's get the other stuff out of the way first. Which is a terrible way to speak of Karita Mattila, isn't it?

Karita was my very first London event on Monday night and, as I've been telling everyone who'll listen, she's a goddess. Of course. She marched out on stage every inch the blonde bombshell and then, as bombshells tend to do, exploded. Fantastic. For the first half of the programme we had Barber's Hermit Songs followed by a series of songs by a collection of Finnish composers. The Barber was gorgeously sung and with impeccable English diction (so impeccable that though I was an idiot and forgot to pick up a programme before the show, I was able to follow them unaided) even if the songs themselves do grow a little ho-hum after a while. Well, as ho-hum as anything can get in the hands of Finland's answer to Marilyn Monroe. Unsurprisingly she's in her element in the Finnish songs, relentlessly melancholy but with such soul and such varying colours that though we might glimpse the abyss, we never fall in. Post-interval it was six of Hugo Wolf's Lieder aus dem Spanisches Liederbuch, including a favourite of mine, In dem Schatten meiner Locken, followed by Granados' La maja y el ruisenor and the transcendent highlight of the show, Turina's Poema en forme de canciones, a glorious and evocative tour de force. Who knew such an ice-blonde Nordic goddess had such authentically Spanish colours in her? She topped it all of with a pair of brilliant encores and a lot of talking: she's hilarious and utterly disarming. First, Dvorak's "Songs my mother taught me" except in the original language of course, sung barefoot and beautifully, and then what I can only call a Finnish novelty song - which she explained so well and performed so fantastically that though she said "it's Finnish humour" everyone from elsewhere in the world was in stitches also. This was Monday night, an incredibly warm evening, so she stopped after that and told us to go home before we fainted: then she left us with a few phrases of "Tonight" from West Side Story: "dream of me" - as if we'd any choice. (P.S. There were microphones there, and I've just noticed in the programme that the recital's to be broadcast on BBC3 on the 2nd of July. Definitely worth your while.)

So far just one other non-Fedora musical excursion: a trip this afternoon to the Handel House Museum. The Tower and Buckingham Palace are all very well but this place was the beginning, middle and end of my must-see-in-London list. It's an odd thing, and difficult to get your head around, finding yourself in the room where he slept, where he dressed and, most eerie of all I suppose, where he composed. To think that all the glory came not directly from heaven, but a man, in a room with a harpsichord. Bizarre. As you walk through the rooms, restored to look as they did when he was in residence, there are various portraits and so on on the walls but really, it's just about being there. As an added bonus, there's an exhibition there currently, Handel & The Castrati. Basically it's an audio tour through the various castrati Handel composed for: a panel for each significant boy, plus a headset to listen to an aria composed for him. Countertenor heaven! David Daniels, Andreas Scholl, Bejun Mehta and Michael Chance all appear on the recorded examples, all sounding dreamy. Marilyn Horne's there too, and Vivica Genaux (singing not Handel but one of those ridiculous arias written for Farinelli by his brother). It's hardly what you'd call an in-depth exhibit but interesting all the same: for those who like the gory details, there's even a (sadly rather small) display of tools of the trade. For all of this, though, the best moment of all for me came when I'd finished the tour and was browsing in the gift shop to the strains of a harpsichordist rehearsing in the almost adjacent rehearsal room - and suddenly a counter-tenor whose name I'll never know breezes through en route to said rehearsal room, sending out by way of greeting the opening phrases of Giulio Cesare's "Va tacito e nascosto" as he passed through the very room in which presumably it was composed, which separates the shop from the rehearsal room. The paintings and the information panels and the fact sheets are fascinating, but that brief moment, more than anything else really, went straight to my Handelian heart.

Mozart et al at Marama Hall

Before Wednesday's lunchtime concert I'd never ever heard of Jan Ladislav Dussek. Having now heard two of his works for piano, well, that doesn't much surprise me. We heard "Vive Henri-Quatre" ("A setting of the old Bourbon Hymn of Royalist France") and then the very odd "The Sufferings of the Queen of France" ("A Musical Composition, expressing the feelings of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, during her imprisonment, trial, etc.") This second piece even came with a narrator, introducing the piece's innumerable sections: "She reflects on her former grandeur", "She is separated from her children" and so on. It's a worry when one spends the duration of the piece wondering why anyone felt the need to compose the thing. Don't read this as a comment on the standard of playing, on which I'm wholly unqualified to speak but which no doubt was excellent. But honestly. It reminded me somewhat of a project we had to do in third form: write a short story and then, using the music department's flashy new electronic keyboards, "compose" a soundtrack to it. 25 musically illiterate thirteen year olds playing with sound effects and being accidentally atonal. Obviously Dussek is at a somewhat higher standard than this but still this was an altogether strange and strangely pointless piece of music to which I've devoted far too many words. Making matters worse (and better), the Dussek was followed immediately by Pascal Harris and Terence Dennis with the Andante from Mozart's Sonata for 2 Pianos in D major, K.448, glowingly beautiful. Oh right, that's what real music sounds like.

Enough piano! There was singing too. More Mozart: a nifty "Vedrò mentr'io sospiro" from Michael Gray. For some reason, though I'm an incorrigible sopranophile, every time I hear Figaro it's this damned aria which runs through my head for days afterwards. No sooner had it begun to fade after Sunday's Met broadcast than along comes Michael to revive it. Not that I mind of course. Following this, some very nice Mahler courtesy of Nicole Evans: "Scheiden und Meiden" and a very cute "Hans und Grete". And then Claire.

Claire! I get rather boring and repetitive about Claire Barton, but it can't be helped. Every time this woman sings I adore her voice more and more, so that she's no longer just my favourite among the voice students, or my favourite Dunedin singer, but truly one of my favourite singers anywhere. Hers is a voice which not only fills the hall but seems somehow to illuminate it too, a voice which I feel as well as hear. The tired old cliché about singing the phone book applies here: Claire wouldn't just make it beautiful, she could probably make it hilarious as well. Her "Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein" was a delight, the duet from Salieri's Falstaff ("La stessa, la stessissima" except in English) as lovely as ever, but most wonderful of all was her Marcellina in "Via resta servita". That duet is one my favourite things, and usually I'm on Susanna's side — but not this time. Glorious sound, spot-on characterisation. Fiona Henry was her partner for both duets, singing prettily but with no real distinction in colour or manner between her Alice Ford and her Susanna. Claire on the other hand moved easily from Russian prince to Merry Wife of Windsor to scheming spinster, three distinct characters brought deftly and beautifully to life. An absolute triumph.

Deborah Wai Kapohe at Marama Hall

After yesterday's news, writing anything about anything else seems something of an anti-climax but I suppose that life, however surreal, must go on — for the next five and half weeks, at least. And besides, I have something to write about: a recital at Marama Hall today by distinguished New Zealand soprano/Otago master's student Deborah Wai Kapohe, accompanied by the unchangingly excellent Terence Dennis. Vocal performances are all too rare among Marama Hall's concert calendar (too rare, I mean, for my own heavily biased tastes) — solo vocal recitals are, not surprising, even rarer. It's one wonderful thing about being a student: pay $2, see a recital easily worth a whole lot more.

The first time I heard Deborah, I was still several months away from complete devotion to opera. I knew next to nothing then (not much has changed!) but I knew that I loved Kathleen Battle. That first recital was an enchanting one, in which Deborah accompanied herself on classical guitar — and some of the repertoire I recognised, on account of Kathy's sublime CD with Christopher Parkening, Pleasures of their Company (if you've never heard it, do so as soon as you can).  I was an instant fan.

Most recently, I heard Deborah in her last Marama Hall appearance which, amazingly enough, I discover was almost a year ago. The time has certainly flown. Then, she sang Spanish and Orientalist songs by Gounod, Berlioz et al. This afternoon was altogether a different flavour: opera scenes and arias. Oh my, I don't think I realise how starved for live opera I am in this city until I actually get to hear some, and not just an aria or two in a programme otherwise populated with pianos and violins, but a whole programme of it.

Having now heaped all that praise, I'm going to be completely honest and say: I didn't enjoy the first aria on this afternoon's programme. Now, as you'll have gathered, I love the voice: it's big, dark, dramatic and gorgeous with a hint of the Mediterranean about it; but it was precisely those qualities which made it unsuited to the delicate tracery of Ilia's "Zeffiretti lusinghieri". Ilia sings of gentle breezes; Deborah was closer to sirocco perhaps. The other Mozart selection was the rather fierier (have I mixed my heat/warmth metaphors enough yet?)  insertion aria "Vado, ma dove?" and I liked that a whole better; but the true highlight was what came next: Medora's Romanza "Non so le tetre immagini" from Verdi's Il Corsaro. This is early Verdi, very bel canto, very much my style and even more so Deborah's —  I was entranced. Publicity for this recital gave the impression that the Verdi selection would be from Falstaff — Nannetta's "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio", presumably, as she's sung Nannetta on stage and the only other characters with proper "arias" are men — but I'm overjoyed it was this instead. I'm not entirely sure I can imagine her capturing the floaty, ethereal atmosphere of the fairy song but as Verdi's Medora she was ideal and ravishing. Puccini followed Verdi, in the form of Mimì's "Si mi chiamano Mimì" and "Donde lieta usci". The former was fine but somehow never seemed quite in place to me; the latter, on the other hand, was simply beautiful — at moments I almost felt I was hearing my Anna Moffo, who owns this aria for me. In true diva style — and I mean that in the best sense — she ended with a big finish, Marguerite's great scene, "Il était un roi de Thulé" through to "Ah, je ris".  Strangely enough, though I've heard the Jewel Song a million-and-one times (and even have a keyring in the shape of perhaps its greatest interpreter) I have only one recording of the first section — and that in Italian, by the glorious Renata Tebaldi. Hearing it in French, and hearing "Ah, je ris" in slightly more context, both made a welcome change. Deborah pulled the scene off masterfully (watch out, Anne-Sophie Duprels!) as a winningly girlish-but-growing Marguerite, a suitably brilliant conclusion to a beautiful recital.

And things just keep getting better: Deborah gives another recital on May 6th and this time, as it's her master's recital, it's free. Unbelievable. Further even than that, she's to sing the title role in Carmen here in August. Obviously she's perfect for the part; after today's recital I'm surer of that than ever. So much so that, despite my earlier grumblings about the choice of opera, and despite the withdrawal of Anna Leese as Micaela, I find I'm really rather looking forward to Carmen after all. About time I showed some gratitude!

In Recital: Keith Lewis

No Deborah Voigt Leonora for me this afternoon: to the Glenroy Auditorium instead, for a recital by tenor Keith Lewis with pianist Terence Dennis. Give up Debbie for a mere tenor? The right decision I think. I understand Debbie's Forza didn't necessarily show her very best side; and this recital made for a fabulous afternoon of music.

The programme was superb, just the kind to make me very happy indeed. The name Purcell on any programme always lifts my spirits, it's music I find irresistible. Adding to my bliss: Two Lute Songs from Britten's Gloriana (the only[!] Britten opera I own on CD), five songs by Hahn - I melt - and five also by Samuel Barber, two of which I knew and three of which I was very happy to meet. Also some Schubert, which rarely gets me swooning but is, after all, Schubert. Helping matters even further, the tenor singing all this gorgeous music happens to be rather fabulous himself.

There's a sort of vaguely Schubertian strangeness to the sound of Purcell on modern piano but it's not necessarily an unpleasant strangeness, and here it was well-suited to Lewis's courtly yet heartfelt delivery. "Not all my torments" was particularly powerful, the endlessly repeated "I love" building to a heartrending climax before subsiding to "tho' I despair". In "What Power art thou" he seemed fractionally less comfortable, but then so was I: the song's relentlessly pulsing phrasing is disconcerting, to say the least.

The five Schubert Lieder which followed found Lewis even more at ease, an intelligent and pleasingly varied selection, rather on the melancholy side but sung with an airy grace which prevented them from becoming bogged down in misery. The voice does sit rather high, and at times Schubert's growlier moments seemed to get a little lost. Oh, but when's it's Schubert, I'll always take a sweet, mellifluous tenor over a gruff one anyway. And of course, because it was Schubert, the gifts of the pianist (one daren't say accompanist and in this case wouldn't wish to) were on equally prominent display, Terence Dennis playing with his characteristic brilliance. Finishing off the first half of the recital were the two Lute Songs from Gloriana. It's a treat just to hear some live Britten, not something I've experienced very often and I do like the man rather a lot. I wonder, though, if these songs wouldn't prefer a slightly lighter touch than they were given here. Lewis's diction, excellent elsewhere, blurred somewhat in these songs and his heavyweight delivery would have drowned out an actual lute. But perhaps I'm utterly mistaken; I might have to revisit my recording - the only sections I'm really familar with, surprise surprise, are those featuring Yvonne Kenny's electrifying Penelope Rich, sung like some sort of Elizabethan verismo heroine.

After interval, delicious Reynaldo Hahn. The last of the five, "Quand je fus pris au pavillon" is a favourite of mine, a song which always always makes me smile: even - or especially - when it turns up on my mp3 player while I'm, say, wandering through Sydney's Chinatown. Though the poem's speaker is male, I've previously only heard it sung by women, which I like: it gives the song a kind of Cherubino style enthusiasm which suits the text. Still it was handled here with charm. Not sure I agree with the programme's translation however. The song opens with the lines "Quand je fus pris au pavillon de ma dame très gente et belle", which in the programme are translated as "When I was taken to my good Lady's pavilion". But that "au" doesn't mean "to" so much as "in", which changes matters a little.

Finishing up the recital, Samuel Barber. I recognised one of the titles, "Sure On This Shining Night", from Barbara Bonney's My Name is Barbra Barbara, but as soon as "The Secrets of Old" started up I realised it too is on that CD and in fact is one of my favourite tracks. The songs suited Lewis to a tee, the music stand in front of him (there for the Hahn songs as well) rendered all but invisible by his expression and his obvious affection for the music. They were a perfect conclusion, "The Praises of God" capping off the recital with a jubilant flourish. Had it ended there, I'd have left full of the joys of living. However, it didn't end there; cruel man, his single encore was Strauss's "Morgen", one of the most upsettingly beautiful pieces of music in existence, all the more so because in my mind it's now forever linked with my diva, and whoever else sings it, I hear Strauss and I hear her, and that's about it. So instead I left tearstained and slightly traumatised, and for me the recital really did end with the Barber. But either way, an excellent finish to an enchanting afternoon's singing by a tenor who deserves a more obviously laudatory adjective than the so-very-New-Zealand "international". I'm very much looking forward to his masterclass tomorrow night.

Mezzo surprise

Right. When I turned up to First Church today for a free recital, when I declined the offer of tea at the door, when I squeezed past the tourists in the aisle, when I sat myself down among a smallish and mostly white-haired churchgoing audience, I was never expecting to hear 'Arianna a Naxos' or Berlioz' 'La Mort de Cléopâtre'. That kind of recital just doesn't happen in this city. It doesn't happen in the evenings in a concert hall. It certainly doesn't happen in a church at lunchtime and free of charge. Except that apparently it does. Amanda Cole, a mezzo soprano from Melbourne here in Dunedin to do her Masters in Performance Voice, sang those two cantatas. On its own, cause enough for celebration. As it happens, she also sang them beautifully. Hers is a darkish velvety sound, not a huge voice but nicely focused, and it found a perfect partner in First Church's excellent acoustic. Her sweetly voice Arianna could at times perhaps have done with a little more dramatic bite, but was touching and attractive all the same. In the Berlioz she was compelling, both vocally and visually. If a few higher passages sat slightly uncomfortably, they were more than compensated for by the richness of the rest; the Méditation 'Grands Pharaons' in particular was shaded to bone-chilling perfection. As she stared in the face of impending death I almost felt that if I turned and looked down the aisle, I'd see it too. The element of (utter) surprise had me ready to enjoy this recital regardless, but Amanda surpassed that factor and was excellent in her own right. I like! I'd gladly have payed proper ticket price for this.

Last things first

In a rather lovely feat of good timing, I managed to come home from Sydney just in time for 'Music and Mayhem', a recital of arias and songs by a collection of lovely Dunedin singers, organised by none other than my favourite Dunedin singer (yes, I'm allowed favourites) Claire Barton. Such a wonderful idea, and very enjoyable, if perhaps the slightest bit too long (but maybe I'm just jetlagged). I think there was a sore throat or two at work tonight, but there were no out-and-out disasters, and there were also several true gems. The shiniest of which was Mlle Barton herself, magnificent as always in a wonderful 'Cruda sorte' and a ravishing 'Bali Ha'i'; not to mention a hilarious Marcellina to Fiona Henry's rather pretty Susanna in 'Via resti servita'. Matt Landreth too was excellent - his singing, particularly in 'Vi ravviso' from La Sonnambula is gaining a silkiness lately which I like very much; and Penelope Muir well nigh stole the show with 'A Word on my Ear' (words here, though it rather needs to be heard as well). A very very nice concert to come back to. And there's the Mozart Requiem tomorrow!

Shanghai Quartet

It's not often I head off to hear a string quartet. Actually, I've never been to see one before in my life, except when there was also some singing somewhere in the concert. But a sudden need to feel slightly less of a philistine had me running to the Glenroy at 7.50pm on Monday night (I'd just been to Bride and Prejudice, so I was cutting it fine, timing-wise) to see the Shanghai Quartet. Wonderful Dunedin: I arrive minutes before the concert begins, get a student rush ticket for $15 - and I'm sitting in the front row. Fabulous. And the music was to die for. I cannot understand why anyone thinks a hideous creation like Bond is necessary to make this stuff exciting. They played two Beethoven string quartets, with arrangements by the second violinist of traditional Chinese music in the middle. And then some Ravel as an encore. It was brilliant. There were moments in the first Beethoven piece (String Quartet in B flat Opus 18 No 6 apparently) which left me almost breathless. And though I'm absolutely and completely unfamiliar with Beethoven string quartets (and Beethoven almost everything else for that matter) somehow I felt all the same as if I knew where I was. It wasn't familiar, but it wasn't bewildering either. The Chinese stuff was fantastic - it was what I was mainly looking forward to. Kudos to Yi-Wen Jiang for such excellent arrangements - equal parts (to me) exotic and familiarly lovely and string quartetish. And then the second Beethoven (String Quartet in C sharp minor Opus 131) which should surely have left them all unconscious with exhaustion - fabulous. And the Ravel encore, one movement of something I would very much like to hear in its entirety. I had a wonderful time. And with no singing! (Truth to tell, I'd still take a soprano over a violin any day...but at least my horizons are widening just a little bit.)

Will I go and see Pascal Rogé with the NZSO tonight?

La Deborah

I think that Deborah Wai Kapohe just about broke Marama Hall tonight. It's a smallish venue and that is one big voice. Huge. Sitting in the second row it was sometimes almost too much. But of course, never actually too much. No such thing as too much Deborah. Tonight she was singing a programme of Spanish-Orientalist songs. Gounod, Berlioz, Bizet, Saint-Saens, de Falla, Ravel, Rodrigo. Mouth watering yet? It should be. This was art song not for the faint hearted. If you were used to Sylvia McNair-style mélodies, you might have been in for a shock. But oh my, it was an experience. There was no holding back: she tore in to these songs with the most infectious passion, savouring every single moment, regardless of whether she was singing or not. She might have had a music stand in front of her, but it was easy to ignore.

After a Godowsky piano piece from the Mighty Terence Dennis, she walked on stage singing Gounod's 'Medjé'. Intense, incredible. Then a brilliant and gorgeous (if perhaps the tiniest bit too cheerful) Zaide (Berlioz). Just the decoration on 'ma belle ville' was more than worth the $5. So if the next two songs were slightly less than perfect, well, who cares? Not me. And we're speaking of a first-rate singer here: 'slightly less than perfect' can fairly be translated as 'still better than just about anybody'. Besides, if the only real issue I have is that sometimes the voice is just a bit too overwhelmingly powerful for the song, well, it's hardly a shattering criticism, is it? And so I did think that De Falla's 'Les colombes' was a bit heavy. But 'Chinoiserie' which followed was quite to die for: she doesn't just know how to sing, she knows how to tell a story, and if you spoke not a word of French, you'd still be hard pressed not to pick up on the spirit of it all. And she threw herself into 'Séguidille' with some very convincing shouts of 'Alza! Ola!'.

After the interval we had Ravel's Shéhérazade which was basically successful. As I say, the sheer power of Deborah's voice sometimes overcomes the delicacy of songs like these. But it's not a serious problem, on account of her simply superb artistry: the sound isn't always as beautiful as it might be, but it is always always meaningful. Of the three songs in the cycle, 'La flûte enchantée' was the best - the spectrum of vocal colours at this woman's disposal is quite incredible, and that ability was given full scope here. I think that in her heart, though, Deborah Wai Kapohe is a Spaniard. Her only classical CD (she also has a career as an alternative folk/rock singer) is of Spanish songs, in which she accompanies herself on classical guitar, and it's a gorgeous disc; here too she was happiest in the four Rodrigo songs. Each was an absolute gem. 'De dónde venís, amore?' was simply fabulous, and 'De los alamos vengo, madre' just the right showstopper with which to conclude the recital proper. She could quite easily have sent us all home still buzzing from that one, but her single encore made for an even better finish: Montsalvatge's 'Cancion de cuna para dormir a un negrito' was all hushed beauty and, quite simply, perfect.

Nevertheless I think Deborah can do even better than all this. It was overpowering at times, and there was the odd note which didn't quite come out as planned. It's an undeniably beautiful voice but the beauty was at times obscured by the volume and weight of the singing. Her intentions were clear but they weren't always exactly realised. It was still a brilliant evening though! Don't think that I'm saying otherwise. Above all, her affinity for this kind of music makes for the most amazingly unified recital experience. Seven composers, two languages and various settings, but the result of it was a sort of musical and cultural portrait of Spanish/Orientalist spirit - almost becoming one recital-length song cycle. She's an astonishing and always fascinating performer.

And what I really really want now is to hear her in opera. Given a nice big venue and a nice juicy role she must be unbelievable. Puccini, Verdi, that sort of meaty Italian yumminess. I'd love to hear her Mimi, her Cio-Cio San; I did hear her Alice Ford  Nannetta (I knew that!) on radio and it was quite something. More than anything, though, this recital, with its Spanish spices, dark mezzo-ish colours, and that fabulous red dress, made me think: she was born for Carmen. Surely she's sung Carmen. I don't know. But I did hear somewhere that she's singing it right here in Dunedin next year. Is this true? I don't know. I hope it's true. It would certainly be worth a great deal more than $5!

Marama Hall: recital by vocal students

How wonderful: a Wednesday lunchtime recital devoted entirely to vocal students. Not that the violinists, pianists, etc. aren't great but it's the singing I come to see: so it's nice for once to have nothing but. Brilliant programme, too: one boy, three girls. Not a ratio I'm ever likely to complain about.

Saving the best for last is such a cliché. So I'll put her first instead: Claire Barton. Incredible! 'Cruda sorte' was just beautiful. I didn't think I was in a very Rossinian mood at the moment but obviously I was mistaken because I absolutely loved this. Claire, it would seem, is both vocally and temperamentally suited to a role like Isabella; so apparently at ease with the music that I could hardly believe this was the first time I'd ever heard Claire singing anything from Rossini. All those runs and acrobatics are already sounding very very good indeed, and I can only imagine that as time goes by they'll grow into something quite special. Can't forget David Baker's 'Someone is sending me flowers' either, which not only sounded lovely, but also worked as a piece of comedy: something which requires quite some skill - not to mention the diction to make yourself understood while singing in English. It worked brilliantly: as the laughs in the audience proved.

Penelope Muir - who's off to the Song Quest final in a couple of weeks - was also in fine form. The luxury of Lucia Popp has, I fear, left me rather immune to anybody else's 'Song to the Moon'; nevertheless Penny's was excellent, as it always is; the highest notes (here and in Monica's Waltz from The Medium) are perhaps not always as beautiful as they could be but the interpretation as a whole always works wonderfully. What's struck me about Penny lately is the power of her voice; Dunedin's shining stars of late have tended to be of the sweet and lyric variety, but Penny's singing is something slightly darker and more dramatic. She's also a brilliant vocal actress: Monica's Waltz was truly a tour de force, and the final words, as Monica tells Toby he has 'the most beautiful voice in the world' were heartbreaking.

The third girl on the programme (although in fact she sang first) was Fiona Henry, sounding immeasurably better than the last time I heard her. Both 'Der Nussbaum' (Schumann) and Fauré's 'Rêve d'amour' sounded very pretty; and there was a richness and fullness to the voice in the Fauré which I've not really heard from Fiona before. Both pieces were very well chosen: she sounded great.

And Stephen Chambers, as always, sounded fabulous. The two Elgar songs - 'Is she not passing fair?' and 'Speak Music' - were better, I thought, than 'En fermant les yeux' and Donaudy's 'Vaghissima sembianza'. All of it sounded great, of course; but there was rather a tendency towards sameness: nothing to distinguish English song from French opera, and so on. Because of this, the Elgar came across particularly well: but the Massenet and the Donaudy suffered a little, I thought. Undeniably lovely to listen to, but perhaps less than compelling. The voice itself is already so naturally appealing, I can't help but but think that a touch of fire and dramatic sensibility would make Stephen just about unstoppable.

On The Upward Path

As planned, I forwent Pelléas et Mélisande at 3 this afternoon, and went instead to 'On The Upward Path', a concert by four Dunedin singers, presented by the Friends of the Opera. It's been far far too long since I've heard these or any other Dunedin singers, and I wasn't going to give up the chance. Even if it did mean wearing a 'Hello My Name Is' sticker - this concert was open to the public, but it was also the first get-together of the year for the Friends, so there were biscuits, coffee and tea, and name tags. Not to worry: it was wonderful.

We started and finished with Penelope Muir, a semi-finalist in this year's Lexus Song Quest. Her 'Song to the Moon' from Rusalka was a triumph, transcending some rather obstructive piano accompaniment, and an improvement on her already very good rendition from last year's ODT Aria Competition. Kudos also for making Walton's fiendishly difficult 'Old Sir Faulk' look almost easy - I'm looking at the text now and wondering how anyone could be so cruel as it set it to music and expect someone to sing it. Monica's Waltz from Menotti's The Medium did have the odd moment which seemed to sit a little uncomfortably, but overall it was a success.

Then we had Stephen Chambers. Proving that being related to Marie McLaughlin (sorry, I've still got that Figaro on the brain) isn't his only claim to fame! 'Una furtiva lagrima' was just gorgeous, and the song from Die Schöne Müllerin was likewise excellent. 'Aura Lee' doesn't do much for me, personally; but I've no doubt Stephen won the hearts of most of the audience when he finished up with this, like a sort of Dunedin Daniel O'Donnell (in the best possible sense!)

The other boy on the programme was Michael Gray, who holds the honour of being the only baritone I've also heard sing soprano. What am I talking about? Michael and I were at the same primary school, and he was the resident star boy soprano of our school's Junior Choir. But he's even better now! 'Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen' from Zauberflöte was gorgeous, with the sort of humour and vocal characterisation which singers who are still students all too often shy away from. 'Captain Stratton's Fancy' by Peter Warlock is a bit silly really, but nevertheless is sounded great.

I've left the best till last. Claire Barton. I have never never heard Claire sounding this fabulous! She's always excellent, no doubt about it, but today was just something else. I stand amazed. This can't just be my imagination: some very happy transformation has occured in the months since I last heard her sing. I think this was about the third time I've heard Claire sing Marcello's 'Quella fiamma', but it was the first time she's brought me to edge of my seat with it. And 'Vanne, o rosa fortunata' was gorgeous. I wanted a full-length recital. I wanted the CD! Whatever it is you're doing Claire, I beg of you, don't stop!

I decided, however, not to go to the Bach cantata at Knox Church. Which meant I got to hear all of most of Pelléas et Mélisande after all. I would have liked to have heard Act I, with all its eerie forest music, but what I did hear (the last three acts) was just wonderful. Everyone was perfectly cast: José van Dam's Golaud equally convincing both in his violen jealousy and his remorse, Anne Sofie's Mélisande beautiful and ethereal, William Burden an appealing and lyrical Pelléas. Roberto Scandiuzzi's Arkel was likewise excellent, and I can only guess that Felicity Palmer was as well. But it's really very difficult to review something like this, especially when I was hearing it all for the very first time: the music is as elusive and impossible to grasp as the heroine herself.

As with Turandot, I listened to this with a piano vocal score in front of me, which was particularly interesting, on account of the pencilled annotations throughout, obviously left there at some point by a musical student. So every now and then there were notes pointing out themes, key changes, oboes, that sort of thing, as well as the odd comment of the text - all sorts of thing which I'd never otherwise have known were there. Although in fact the best moment came when Golaud grabbed his son. "Sadism again", the student notes. And beside that note, in another, later hand: "Can't be helped."

The wanderer returns

I'm back from Nelson, and a weekend of semi-adventures. I'll get to the highlight of the holiday (and my life) in a moment, but first some other things.

For one thing, I got to be an opera-yobbo. I was still in Nelson on Sunday, so I had to organise myself to listen to the Sunday opera there. Katya Kabanova. Now, I was all set for some seriously nerve-shattering music but in fact it was gorgeous, very easy on the ears. It was difficult, I have to say, to try and follow an opera without the aid of a libretto, especially when it's not being sung in a language I at least vaguely know. I only had brief moments of knowing where in the plot we were, as I tried to match Margaret Juntwait's preamble with the voices I was hearing. I always always knew when Magdalena was singing: nobody on earth sounds quite like her. And Karita's rather difficult to miss: absolutely fabulous. But to get back to the yobbo thing. I had two options for listening to the opera: headphones and a radio with so-so reception, or the car. I chose the latter. And so that I didn't suffocate, I had a door open. At least, I did for most of the first act: until the charming man in the room across the driveway came and asked me to shut it because the music was "annoying the hell out of us". I obliged, although without a smile. Really, though, he should have just been grateful the opera wasn't Wozzeck. Honestly.
I also managed, in record speed, to find the one CD store in Nelson with a real classical section: and it's a very very real one. Heaps of stuff. There's a big Naxos and other budget label section, then an opera section as well. I resisted (it wasn't hard) the $14.95 Maria Callas Ballo. But I did buy: Victoria de los Angeles Spanish Songs; Vissi d'arte: The Magnificent Voice of Montserrat Caballé; The Best of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf; and two Opera d'Oro live recordings- a Nozze di Figaro with Mirella Freni and Frederica von Stade, and Catalani's La Wally with Renata (come on, it was only $10).

Right. That's the boring stuff out of the way. Now for the reason we went to Nelson. The gorgeous, the divine, the out of this world...

Patricia Wright.

The concert she was singing in was part of the Adam Festival of Chamber Music, which is still going on this week. The New Zealand String Quartet plus guest viola player played a Brahms quintet and a Brandenburg Concerto. Patricia sang five Bach arias and four Vaughan Williams songs.

I hardly know what to say. The Bach was what really had me counting the days until the concert. I'm a Bach fiend anyway, and just the though of what Patricia would do with the arias was too exciting for words. Somehow- I don't know how she managed it- she was even better than I thought. My hopes were pretty stratospheric but she exceeded them. All I was prepared for was the voice itself, which is incredibly beautiful. I had no idea what a fabulous performer and interpreter she is. This sort of music is so gorgeous on its own that you can forget the extra dimension which an excellent performance of it can add. Forget your soulless boy soprano-soundalike HIP singers: this was sparkly and joyous and wonderful. There's a golden quality and a warmth to the voice which makes every moment shine. So much so that the beauty of it spilled over into the silences between arias as well.

The Vaughan Williams songs, however, were another matter entirely. Leading up to the concert, I wasn't really much interested in them; they were another opportunity for Patricia to sing, and therefore a Good Thing, but otherwise I wasn't hugely looking forward to them- given my druthers I'd probably have happily replaced them with more Bach. But then I heard them and lost my heart completely. The musical directors of the festival are brilliant brilliant women: I cannot think of a more perfect meeting of singer and song. To start with, the songs themselves are a magnificent idea: they're written for soprano and oboe, which, as you can imagine, is a pretty heartmelting combination. And it all gets even more ridiculously beautiful when you've got a voice like Patricia's singing them. The best thing is that the heart which you can hear her pour into her singing can also be seen: she's spellbinding to watch, so absolutely committed that, as I said, the atmosphere she creates continues in the silences. She sang four of these Vaughan Williams songs. I seem to think I heard the first, 'Infant Joy', sung in somebody's exam recital last year. 'The Piper' followed, then 'The Shepherd' and 'Eternity'. As besotted with the oboe as I was, I think I have to name 'The Shepherd', which is performed without accompaniment, as my favourite. But in fact, from the first note of 'Infant Joy' to the final bars of 'Eternity' I was basically paralysed: there was simply nothing else in the world (including Kiri Te Kanawa recitals) I would rather have been listening to. And it took me a long time to return to earth.

It gets even better, by the way. When it was all finished, and I was still floating, we went from the Cathedral to In Vino Fides, the 'Official Festival Tapas Restaurant and Bar', where the programme promised us we would meet the artists. We were somewhat skeptical, but as oboists and violinists started drifting in our hopes were lifted. Then all of a sudden there she was, the woman herself, resplendent in purple frock and big sparkly earrings. (I don't think you could ever mistake this woman's profession). One really oughtn't ever pass up the chance to tell a soprano how fabulous she is: so eventually we managed to meet her (in fact she recognised my father first, on account of his sponsorial presence at the singing competitions). As far as I'm concerned, with a voice like that, she's allowed to be the most Evil Diva on the planet; she was, however, an absolute delight. Gorgeous voice, gorgeous person. I'm such a fan. Can you tell?

I've posted this link before, but I'll do it again: you simply must go here and listen to the samples from Serenata. I think you'd have to be made of stone to resist singing like this.

Jonathan Lemalu

So. Jonathan Lemalu. What can I say? The boy is a star. We know this of course already- as far as I was concerned he had nothing to prove last night. And wasn't he fabulous? Every moment of him. I had such a good time, even from my seat halfway up the upper gallery (although I was at least near enough to the door to get a bit of a breeze- it's a bit of an inferno up there). The comments on the last post pretty much say it all anyway. I agree with those who thought the second half was better than the first, although of course the first half was still pretty damned fantastic.

Highlights for me? Let me think. Well his very first aria, 'Vous qui faites' from Faust, simply because it was my first experience of Jonathan live. And while things were a little quiet up as far as I was, I thought Prince Gremin's aria from Eugene Onegin was fabulous too. But, yes, the Mozart fix in the second half was where I got especially excited. Leporello, Figaro, Count Almaviva, and Papageno. Short of throwing a soprano in the works, it really doesn't get much better than that. Especially Papageno. No wonder he stole the show at Glyndebourne. If I was a proper opera reviewer, I'd probably use the word 'ebullient' too. I'm not, so I won't, but it's a good word all the same. 'Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen' was excellent; 'Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja' was adorable and hilarious- I imagine he acted it last night in much the same way he did in the opera, complete with pipes, and it was wonderful.

To repeat myself: I enjoyed myself a lot last night. He's not a soprano or a mezzo, so I didn't cry. But he's incredibly good and he did make me smile. And laugh. I think he's just brilliant and luckily so does the rest of the world. Well done Mr Lemalu.