BAIBA SKRIDE PLAYS MOZART / SALIERI-MOZART DOUBLE BILL / Review

BAIBA SKRIDE PLAYS MOZART

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Wednesday (1 December 2021)

 

OPERA DOUBLE BILL:

SALIERI & MOZART

Singapore Lyric Opera

Esplanade Theatre

Friday (3 December 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 December 2021 with the title "Mozart tributes in orchestra and opera". 

One beneficiary of the current Covid pandemic has been the music of Mozart. Ironic as it seems, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has never played more Mozart in its 42-year history. Far from being staid or boring, new life has been breathed into these classics. Not content with merely sounding pretty, a perfection of form and execution was witnessed in prize-winning Latvian violinist Baiba Skride’s view of  Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.4 in D major.

 

One of his less showy works, its beauty lies in sheer lyricism, which Skride revealed from the outset. Her tone was lush, with a healthy vibrato that was not overdone and precise intonation throughout. She also projected well above the orchestra which did not mince notes in the accompaniment. Any concession for virtuosity took place in the cadenzas of all three movements, and these were also beautifully proportioned.

 

The orchestra led by French conductor Pierre Bleuse lent excellent support without trying to sound like those period instrument bands, and this vigour continued into Mozart’s Symphony No.40, one of just two symphonies cast in the minor key. The associated storms and stresses did not arrive, as the very familiar opening movement came across breezy rather than hectic.

 

This is music that takes a nice long breath, none more so in the expansive slow movement which was all elegance and grace. Even the relative urgency of the third movement soon dissolved into ebullience in the finale, which recalled the lively antics of Mozart’s comic operas.

 

Speaking of the theatre, Singapore Lyric Opera deserves credit for conceiving a Salieri-Mozart double bill of two short comic operas that were premiered simultaneously at Vienna’s Schonbrunn Palace one February day in 1786. Far from being bitter rivals, there existed a respectful and collegial relationship between Antonio Salieri and Mozart, but posterity has always favoured the latter.

 

Conducted by Lien Boon Hua, Salieri’s Prima La Musica e Poi Le Parole (First The Music, Then The Words) was performed before Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), both united by a common plot about artists, their occupational quirks and supposed rivalries. Tang Xinxin’s clever direction eschewed long dialogues in Italian and German, opting instead for English repartee between sung bits which greatly enhanced the appreciation and enjoyment of both operas.

 

There was a common cast, led by the excellent duelling sopranos Joyce Lee and Sylvia Lee, who came close to cat fights as each tried to gain an upper hand. Short excerpts from other Mozart operas were inserted into both operas, also to good effect. The men completed the buffo element for the farces, with David Tao as Poet/Buff squaring off against Daniel Fong’s Composer and Jonathan MacPherson’s Vogelsang. Their much smaller singing parts were made up by comedic acting and solid characterisations.

 

Plaudits also go to Dorothy Png’s set, lighting and constume design, which plumbed for traditional in Salieri in contrast with modernity in Mozart. The slick movements of curtains and backdrop while Mozart’s Overture to Der Schauspieldirektor was being played represented a symbolic changing of the guard. Whichever way one looked at it, Mozart still won.