VOICES OF BRILLIANCE / Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts 2014 / Review

VOICES OF BRILLIANCE

Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts 2014 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Saturday (8 February 2014) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 February 2014 with the title "Brilliant vocals at a more intimate show".

After the good notices from last year’s Voices Of Splendour concert at the Huayi Festival, this year’s fixture was scaled down significantly but no less successful. Most glaring for an opera highlights concert was the absence of an orchestra. In its place was the lone figure of Shane Thio, still Singapore’s finest and busiest collaborative pianist.

In his usual best to support the three Chinese singers, Thio actually convinced that the luxury of an orchestra was just that, a luxury. His steadiness, sensitivity and versatility allowed the voices to shine, and there was no way they would be drowned out. Already plying their trade in the world’s great opera houses, the threesome was excellent in a selection of Chinese art songs and Western operatic arias.

Returning was statuesque mezzo-soprano Zhu Huiling, whose opening song Homesickness by Huang Zi possessed a soothing serenade-like quality. The more dramatic Anzoleta avanti la Regata by Rossini was well projected, and further theatricality was provided with the scintillating Chanson Boheme from Bizet’s Carmen, an apt follow-on to last year’s offerings of the Seguidilla and Habanera.  

The more compactly built Soprano Yu Guanqun impressed with how she could build up from the hush of intimacy to a sonic boom in the highest registers. She did so effortlessly in Mozart’s Come scoglio (Cosi Fan Tutte) and Leonora’s aria Tacea la notte placida (Il Trovatore). The Chinese romances Yearning For My Love and I Live by the Headwaters of the Yangtze were also beautifully crafted.

Baritone Shenyang, winner of the 2007 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, appeared to be the crowd-pleaser. His easy, almost leisurely, way with Leporello’s Catalogue Aria (Mozart’s Don Giovanni) in recounting amorous conquests, and devilish laughter in Mephistopheles’s Vous que faites l’endormie (Gounod’s Faust) were the key. In Zhao Yuanren’s How Could I Not Miss Her, he exhibited a very fine control that was both touching and sincere.

There were no duets, instead trios including Mozart’s Soave sia il vento, the voices blending nicely in almost the perfect sneak preview to the Singapore Lyric Opera’s production of Cosi Fan Tutte later this month. In Qu Cong’s I Love You, China and John Ordway’s Farewell, each had individual lines to sing before coming together in unison. Closing with a sort of party joke, the trio united for the quintessential tenor aria, Puccini’s Nessun Dorma (Turandot), as if to show that no tenors were being missed tonight. 

The encores brought the house down. The first had both ladies re-enacting Rossini’s Cat Duet around the silent and bemused baritone. The second was unaccompanied, the familiar Inner Mongolian folksong Mu Ge (Pastorale) in Huang Ruo’s nostalgic and spine-tingling arrangement. More of the same next year, please.    

Photograph courtesy of Esplanade Theatre by the Bay.

VOICES OF SPLENDOUR / Huayi Festival 2013 / Review

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 wilderness. Unsurprisingly, she received the most vociferous of applause.

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 (Drinking Song) from Verdi’s La Traviata – exuberant but sounding somewhat unrehearsed - being their just desserts. 

Photographs courtesy of Esplanade Theatres by the Bay.