LIVING WITH G.F.HANDEL
The Basso Canaries
The Living Room @ The
Arts House
Monday (6 August 2012 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 August 2012 with the title 'Chinese soprano upstages Singaporean baritones".
Every male who thinks he can sing fancies
himself to be a tenor. Reality dictates otherwise, and it takes a rare bird to
settle being a lower-voiced and less glamourous baritone. The recently-departed
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau showed that baritones could combine seriousness with
an avuncular sort of glamour, and be more than a match for those egotistical
and attention-hogging tenors.
Thus it is a minor triumph that two young
Singaporean baritones have mustered enough guts and gumption to pair up and
presenting themselves in concerts as the tongue-in-cheek named Basso Canaries. Both
Xiao Chunyuan and Steven Ang are vocal students in Singapore Taipei
During his time, Handel (1685-1759) wrote some
of the most florid and technically demanding arias for his Italian operas and
later English oratorios. It takes a singer with enormous range, utmost
flexibility and almost implausible agility to do justice to these highly
theatrical numbers. It would be an understatement to say that both Basso
Canaries gave their bravest and best shots within a steep learning curve.
Xiao, more heftily built, had the bigger sound
that was called for in Revenge, Timotheus
Cries from Alexander’s Feast. He
certainly can dramatically project and vary his dynamics, but tends to swallows
his words. Thus his English sometimes becomes indistinguishable from his
Italian, as in the passionate aria Tu se il
cor in questo core (You are the Heart
of my Heart). Also that all too provincial Singaporean trait of pronouncing
“their” as “diar” should be dropped for good.
Ang, the leaner of the two, displayed no
shortage of pathos in See The Flames
Arise from Joshua, was able to
emote and identify with the protagonist’s angst in Aure, deh, per pieta (Ye
Breezes, In Pity) from Julius Caesar.
His rather constricted range, wavering intonation and straining to reach higher
notes were however limiting factors in this demanding repertoire.
In duets with Shandong-born soprano Elaine Su
Yiwen, a student at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, the disparity became more
apparent. In the final mellifluous duet of Cleopatra and Caesar, Caro, Bella, piu amabile belta, Su
sounded natural and effortless while Ang struggled to hit the high spots. Su
had her own aria, So Shall the Lute and the
Harp Awake from Judas Maccabeus,
which was thrilling as she clearly relished in the typically virtuosic
Handelian runs. All three singers were ably supported by pianist Beatrice Lin.
On this evening, two Singaporean canaries were
upstaged by one Chinese nightingale.
