Photographs from OPERA MIXER: THE ITALIAN EDITION

If you love music for the voice, but are not too familiar about opera and its finer points, then Opera Mixer is right for you. Presented by Opera Viva, Opera Mixer aims to demystify the mystique and intrigue about opera by presenting arias, duets and ensembles in a fun and unstuffy manner. Melissa Chan, the evening's mezzo-soprano (also a Board Member of Opera Viva) set the tone by inviting the audience to relax and imagine attending a party on Venice's Grand Canal. Over drinks, crackers and cheese, the evening of Italian operatic highlights unfolded with lots of melodrama and very good singing.

This evening's programme was drawn exclusively from Italian opera, with a healthy dose from the bel canto tradition - Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini. There was just one Puccini aria, some Verdi and the occasional rarity, mostly because one did not expect such demanding numbers to be performed in Singapore! 

All four singers, soprano Wendy Woon, mezzo Melissa Chan, tenor Leslie Tay and baritone Alvin Tan were not only excellent in their delivery but also very conversant in sharing their passion for singing with the audience. They mused about their roles, revealing details and finer points about being an opera singer - their ups and downs - and also provided helpful synopses about each opera. It all came across as informal, informative and mostly enjoyable fun. In these days when the arts play second fiddle to entertainment and sports, such an injection of life is not only necessary but vital.

The evening opened with soprano Wendy Woon
singing Un bel di from Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

Baritone Alvin Tan sang some Handel and
Verdi's Di Provenza il mare (La Traviata)

Tenor Leslie Tay spoke about castrati and
offered more Handel and the gem that is
Una furtiva lagrima from Donizetti's L'elisir d'Amore.

Mezzo Melissa Chan explained and demonstrated
the "trouser role" by portraying Romeo in
Bellini's I Montecchi e I Capuleti.

Parigi o cara from Verdi's La Traviata.

Many expressions of Melissa Chan
in Bellini and Rossini (Non piu mesta from La Cenerentola)

A duet from Bellini's I Montecchi e I Capuleti.

Bromance time in a duet from
Verdi's Don Carlo.

Wendy Woon sensitively plays the ill-fated
Anna Bolena from Donizetti's opera.

The grand finale was the famous Quartet
from Verdi's Rigoletto.

All four singers take their bow and stand with
their "orchestra" pianist Benjamin Lim (extreme left).

VIVA VIOLA / Kris Foundation Concert / Review

VIVA VIOLA

Jeremy Chiew, Christoven Tan (Violas) et al

Kris Foundation Concert

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (11 August 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 August 2017 with the title "Viola's dark and dusky sonority".

Why have violas and violists always been given short shrift? Singaporean violist Jeremy Chiew, who organised this viola fest for the Kris Foundation, provided valid reasons in a short preamble. For example, the viola's size and volume militated against possessing the violin's sweetness or the cello's mellowness and projection.

He could, however, comfort himself with the viola's dark and dusky sonority, especially in the context of playing with other string instruments. The opening work was a delightful duo featuring Christoven Tan's viola and Leslie Tan's cello in the 1^st movement of Beethoven's “Eyeglass” Duet.

Composed for a cellist friend who needed corrective lenses for his short-sightedness, this was a match of equals with the viola (which Beethoven played) given the leading voice. That both performers were bespectacled was no surprise in myopia-prevalent Singapore, and there was no surprise either in tautness of ensemble, with each instrument alternating between providing melody and accompaniment.

The combo of viola and violin also worked well in the well-known Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia, with Jeremy Chiew and Chikako Sasaki respectively. Whatever agility the violin mustered was equally matched by the viola (which replaced the customary cello) in its masterful set of very short variations.

When two violas come together, as in Frank Bridge's elegiac Lament, the depth of sound was doubled. Seldom has a work sounded this soulful or long-breathed, with two similar voices mirroring and echoing each other, which Chiew and Tan brought to sonorous perfection.

Perhaps the most demanding solo fell to 16-year-old Calvin Dai who played two movements from Brahms' autumnal Viola Sonata No.2 (Op.120 No.2) with Benjamin Lim on piano. A member of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, he brought out a very decent burnished sound and was able to skilfully vary the dynamics for the expressive Allegro appassionato.

The evening's gem was undoubtedly the performance of Mendelssohn's late String Quintet No.2 in B flat major (Op.87), published only after his death. Modelled on Mozart's string quintets which use two violas, Chiew and Tan were joined by Sasaki and Andrew Ng (violins), and Leslie Tan (cello).    

The full impact of strings was immediately felt in the opening Allegro vivace, bursting with energy and vitality. The listener is reminded of the earlier and much more familiar String Octet, but this was just as absorbing, with all five players working in close tandem. Here, the violas played a vital supporting role for Sasaki's first violin and Tan's cello which had most of the big tunes.

For without violas, such a work would sound bereft of heft, and far less rich as a result. Theirs was not to hog the limelight but to enhance interest, as demonstrated in the feathery light Andante scherzando and the impassioned Adagio e lento slow movement. The finale was on the short-winded side, but that did little to diminish the overall stature of a memorable and utterly compelling reading.    

THE SINGAPOREAN STRING QUARTET / Review

THE SINGAPOREAN STRING QUARTET
Artsylum and Oxley Quartets
Esplanade Recital Studio
Friday (2 September 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 September 2011 with the title "Salute to composers".

While the notion of Singaporean string quartets may not be immediately appealing, reality threw up a most fascinating concert featuring seven very individual Singaporean voices. However, one may be excused for being somewhat confused to find three women in black lying on the floor and babbling in Chinese, Malay and Tamil, as a tape of ambient noise played on.

That was the opening gambit, the World Premiere of Weird Witches (2011) by Jun Zubillaga-Pow, a play on the opening of Shakespeare’s Macbeth with a quasi-political message. But where were the strings?

The mystery was solved when two quartet groups made the stage to perform two quartets each. The Artsylum Quartet (below), led by violinist Ng Wei Ping, performed Kelly Tang’s String Quartet (1990, revised 2011) and Jeremiah Li’s Three Korean Scenes (2006). Both were early works in their creative outputs but revealed coherent thoughts and much self-belief.

Tang’s concentrated single-movement distilled influences of the Second Viennese School into a tonal canvas without losing sight of its main thematic thrusts. A worthy academic exercise, quite different from the freedom of Li’s conjuring up impressions of his Korean memories – morning mists and birdsong, a frenetic train ride and the reassuring smell of coffee! The four young Singaporean players brought out the contrasts well.

The slightly more mature Oxley Quartet (below) is formed by a Singaporean, Australian, German and Briton. They were entrusted with Phoon Yew Tien’s String Quartet (1980) and Benjamin Lim’s Through The Glass (2007) and Porcelain Harlequin (2008). It was a pleasure to see and hear the foreign talent confidently handle Phoon’s Chinese-inflected score with such verve, and later put a gloss on Lim’s counterpoint and scherzo-writing.

Both quartets were united and joined by bassist Sanche Jagatheesan for two further works. Lee Yuk Chuan’s Lingzhi Capriccio was the earliest piece, essentially programmatic Chinese music untouched by Western idioms, written for his landmark Chinese opera of 1973. The versatility of the medium saw the pendulum swinging over to the late Leong Yoon Pin’s Largo-Vivace (1982), arguably the evening’s most modern sounding work.

If there was anyone who could transform a Hokkien song into ostinatos that Bartok might have been proud of, it had to be Leong. This salute to our composing legends and emerging creators was a timely and vital one. If only it had a wider audience to share in its glorious diversity.

Teng Ensemble in Concert / Review

Teng Ensemble in Concert
University Cultural Centre Dance Studio
Saturday (6 March 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 March 2010.

Attempts to marry the disparate sounds of Western and Chinese musical instruments are not new, and the results have been variable to say the least. The public début of Teng Ensemble, a self-styled Chinese instrumental collective, at the National University of Singapore’s Arts Festival was a laudable addition to this crossover phenomenon. It may be said that chamber music is the most fertile soil for such experiments to take place.

Helmed by the Beijing-trained Singaporean pipa player Samuel Wong (left), the nucleus of the group also included Yang Jiwei’s sheng, Benjamin Lim’s guitar and Gerald Teo’s cello. These were further augmented by voice, violin and piano to make up a seven-member group, which in all honesty resembled more like a garage band.

In the six pieces on show, the sheng’s penetrating timbre and Wilson Goh’s lustrous and wide-ranging vocals had the juiciest parts, carrying most of the melodic interest. There was only one work that featured all seven musicians, Dang Yuan Ren Chang Jiu by Liang Hong Zhi, with each instrumentalist taking turn in the accompaniment.

Aside from a few decorative passages, there was precious little for the sadly under-utilised violinist Chan Yoong Han. Pianist Shane Thio’s part were also often reduced to providing plodding chords and occasional arpeggios, with the exception of Justin Hegburg’s techno-inspired Confluence where he provided the main rhythmic thrust.

The music, whether Chinese (Benjamin Lim’s He), Malay (P. Ramlee’s Getaran Jiwa) or sung in Italian (Sherman Ko’s Equinox), was never less than tuneful. The opening work, resident composer and arranger Lim’s Chang Men Yuan, a lament based on a Li Bai poem, would also easily pass for an atmospheric soundtrack to a period Chinese epic.

Wong’s uninhibitedly enthusiastic introductions to an audience mostly seated on the studio floor added to the general informality of the event. Entertaining it certainly was. While some new ground is being broken in this genre, the Teng Ensemble is encouraged to scale more heights and further explore.