KINGS & QUEENS OF OPERA
Diana Damrau (Soprano)
& Nicolas Testé (Bass)
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (5 May 2023)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 May 2023 with the title "Soprano Diana Damrau dazzles with technical prowess and emotional depth".
Opera singing is not just about beautiful voices and pretty faces, but much more than that. It involves the faithful and vivid transcendance of personal experiences, and those of legends and fictional characters, to relatable personalities onstage. Dramatic feeling and good acting play big parts but great opera singers possess qualities that draw listeners into innermost thoughts and secrets, making them feel totally involved.
German soprano Diana Damrau is blessed with that X-factor, and her return to Singapore’s stage after a magnificent 2017 showing could not have been more welcome. The same forces that spelt success also came with her, including husband, French bass-baritone Nicolas Testé, and Bulgarian conductor Pavel Baleff, who led the Singapore Symphony from the podium.
This year’s programme, themed around royal subjects, was less popularist than the last. Focused on Italian bel canto and 19th century French opera traditions, nothing was more apt than Damrau opening with Bel Raggio Lusinghier (Alluring Ray Of Light) from Rossini’s Semiramide. Her command and control of tricky running notes seemed effortless, with thrilling flights in high registers negotiated with stunning aplomb.
More importantly was her expression of joy and love, with lyricism and theatricality indelibly captured in a perfect aria that belied the opera’s convoluted and violent narrative. This queen would later be slayed by her lover, who turned out to be her “long-lost” son. More pathos was mined in the Cavatine and Aria from Gaetano Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, where another queen pondered last moments before her impending execution. Damrau’s portrayal of anguish amid vertiginous highs passages was palpable and real.
One absolute rarity was the Prayer, Veliki Bozhe, Chui Moiata Molba (Great Lord, Hear My Prayer), from 20th century Bulgarian composer Parashkev Hadjiev’s Maria Desislava. Another queen is betrothed to marry a king she neither knows nor loves, and her beautifully seamless lines reflected both solemnity and deep contemplation.
Damrau’s partner-in-life Testé also had moments in the spotlight. His richly burnished and stentorian voice shone in portrayals of Claudius (Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet), Solomon (Charles Gounod’s Queen Of Sheba), Don Carlo (Verdi’s opera of the same title) and Prince Gremin (Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin), demonstrating that his was no undercard act.
As there are not so many famous duets for soprano and bass (as opposed to the more glamourous soprano-tenor tandem), the audience had to be satisfied with just one. Donizetti’s Recitative & Duet from Maria Stuarda, Oh Mio Buon Talbot! (Oh My Faithful Talbot!), proved the evening’s highlight, as Damrau’s ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots found solace and peace in the comforting arms of Testé’s Talbot, her keeper.
Opening each set of arias were well-selected orchestral overtures and excerpts from stage composers including Rossini, Adolphe Adam, Leo Delibes, Vincenzo Bellini and Tchaikovsky. The relative unfamiliarity of these, wholly compatible with sung numbers, provided an added allure.
There had to be one absolute showstopper, and Damrau got the final word in Casta Diva from Bellini’s Norma. Has there been a more powerfully emotive aria than this in all of opera? Smoothness and suppleness of delivery were the rule, and despite two well-received encores, one suspects this to be the most abiding memory of an unforgettable evening of opera.
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