|
|
|
|
|
Sydney Morning Herald, August 13, 2023 |
Reviewed by Peter McCallum |
|
Ponchielli: La Gioconda, Sydney, 9. und 12. August 2023
|
La Gioconda in Concert |
|
|
There was resplendence and relief as Jonas Kaufmann rose to the top B flat
of Cielo e mar in Act II of Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, concluding what had
been a masterclass in coloured subtlety and exquisitely tapered phrasing.
The resplendence arose from the rare radiance and fine-grained beauty of
the sound that has made him among the world’s most sought-after tenors. The
relief was that his peerless musical artistry had navigated the thousand
fleshy infirmities to which the human voice is heir to at different times
and places with such supreme mastery.
Kaufmann paced the performance
with insightful, dramatic intelligence, always vividly there when the
theatrical moment required heroic intervention. As exiled hero Enzo, he was
the best-known name among the six superb singers who brought this
once-celebrated, now-faded jewel of the Italian operatic stage to such vivid
life in the Concert Hall.
Saioa Hernandez delivered soaring vocal
gestures of thrilling power and crimson passion as the “smiling lady” of the
title – like Shakespeare’s Viola in Twelfth Night, she is smiling at grief.
Hernandez commanded the stage, cutting through huge choral, orchestral and
vocal forces with thrilling power in her upper register, and creating dark,
fateful definition to low notes. For her climactic scene in Act IV, she
summoned yet more reserves of strength and generous vocal excess.
As
her counterpart and nemesis, French baritone Ludovic Tezier brought menacing
edge and a voice of shaded roughness to Barnaba, the villainous, ungodly spy
of the Inquisition. Tezier sustained Act I with unwavering stamina and
returned to bring later dramatic moments to a brutal culmination.
Australian mezzo-soprano Deborah Humble made a welcome return to these
shores, singing La Cieca, Gioconda’s beloved mother, with richly seasoned,
pleading depth. The preferred rival for Enzo’s affections, Laura, was sung
with a shining, silvered tone by mezzo-soprano Agnieszka Rehlis. Her cruel
husband, Alvise, the sinister leader of the Inquisition, was taken by bass
Vitalij Kowaljow, who led Act III with a roundly moulded sound, veiled in
icy smoothness.
Act III also provides La Gioconda’s other well-known
excerpt, the much-bowdlerised ballet Danza delle ore (Dance of the Hours),
which the Opera Australia Orchestra, under conductor Pinchas Steinberg,
played with compact, disciplined string sound, highlighted with bright
flashes from woodwind. Singing from behind, the Opera Australia Chorus
realised piety and parties with equal gusto and cohesive balance.
In
addition to the individual strengths of the principal singers, it was the
layered intensity of the ensembles, set out with such glistening
contrapuntal clarity in the Concert Hall’s acoustics, which drew the
listener into this dated drama with such gripping effect. This is a rare
chance to hear Italian opera as it once was, and indeed ought to be.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|