VOICES OF SPLENDOUR
Huayi Festival 2013
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (15 February 2013 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 February 2013 with the title "Rousing toast to top Chinese voices".
Chinese voices making their names in the world’s
major opera houses are no longer a rarity, and this concert was a proud
realisation of that fact. No programme was listed prior to the concert, but it
turned out to be not far different from the annual galas presented by the
Singapore Lyric Opera, but with a generous dose of Chinese art songs in
sumptuous orchestrations added into the mix.
The voices were from the top rank of mainland
Chinese singers, now plying their trade in western opera houses. Baritone Yuan
Chenye (above) is no stranger here, having sung in Beethoven’s Choral Symphony that opened Esplanade Concert Hall at its
inauguration in October 2002. He possesses a most expansive and heroic of
voices, matched with a theatricality that served Figaro’s aria Largo al factotum from Rossini’s The Barber
of Seville and the Toreador Aria
from Bizet’s Carmen well.
The advertised mezzo-soprano Liang Ning was
indisposed on account of a skiing accident, and was replaced at the eleventh
hour by Zhu Huiling (above), who was every bit a showstopper. She produced a beautiful
tone and oozed dusky sensuality, totally appropriate for the Seguidilla and Habañera from Carmen, no
doubt aided by her revealing low-cut black gown.
Making the biggest impression and vocally most
interesting was soprano He Hui (above), who opened with a radiant and nuanced account
of Puccini’s Un bel di (Madama Butterfly). Her sense of drama was
gripping, exerting a steely control for Verdi’s Ritorna vincitor! (Aida) and
tugging the heart-strings in Puccini’s poignant Sola, perduta, abbondonata, from the final act of Manon Lescaut, set in the Louisiana
There were two duets with Yuan and the ladies.
Mozart’s La ci darem la mano (Don Giovanni) and Verdi’s Ciel, mio padre (Aida) with Zhu and He respectively demonstrated the palpable vocal
and physical chemistry between the singers.
The Chinese songs, such as Forever Flows the River, Under
The Silver Moonlight, Pamir My
Beautiful Homeland and Song of
Fishermen, were mostly golden oldies, exercises in nostalgia which provided
further opportunities for display of vocal prowess.
The Singapore Lyric Opera Orchestra conducted by
Joshua Kangming Tan provided excellent accompaniment, and had several pieces on
its own. Li Huanzhi’s Spring Festival
Overture has become a ubiquitous fixture, and Chen Peixun’s Ode to Snow, exuded a pastoral demeanour
that might have been mistaken for Vaughan Williams or Delius.
The concert closed with all three singers united
in Gu Jianfen’s life-affirming ode That
Is I, which got the audience so excited that an encore was demanded. The
bubbly was brought out, with the rousing Brindisi
Photographs courtesy of Esplanade Theatres by the Bay.
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