DICHTERLIEBE & HERMIT SONGS / New Opera Singapore / Review

DICHTERLIEBE & HERMIT SONGS

New Opera Singapore

The Chamber @ The Arts House

Tuesday (25 November 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 November 2014 with the title "Promising lieder from young group".

Lieder and art song have a very small following among local audiences, so miniscule that attendances are often discouraging to performers and presenters, who can never hope to recoup costs of mounting recitals. Nevertheless, groups like The Sing Song Club and New Opera Singapore persevere, if only to give its singers the chance to perform this repertoire, and hope that some people do listen.

Only 32 souls were present to witness this recital of two song cycles performed by ten young singers of New Opera Singapore, six of whom were making their debuts. Despite being young, they acquitted themselves well in this serious art form, even suggesting that some would go on to have real singing careers.

The audience was asked the rhetorical question, “What is love?”, a prelude to Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe (Poet’s Love). With words in German by Heinrich Heine, its 16 songs were shared by four men, beginning with tenor Isaac Ho (above) in the opening Im wunderschönen Monat Mai (In The Marvellous Month Of May). The debutant impressed in this and three other songs with his clear, ringing tone and ardent demeanour, providing the ideal setting for the season to fall in love.

Tenor Shaun Lee, a lawyer by training, has advanced his craft in leaps and bounds over the months, registering fine performances in four songs, including The Rose, The Lily, The Dove, the Sun and Ich grolle nicht (I Complain Not), with the kind of passion and projection that will fill concert halls. American tenor Sam Garcia, a university exchange student, exhibited a wide range of emotions, not least earnestness in Wenn ich in deine Augen seh (When I Gaze Into Your Eyes) and playful humour in Ein jungling liebt ein Mädchen (A Lad Loves A Girl).

Baritone Lim Jing Jie, presently serving national service, used his deep, gravelly voice to good effect in Im Rhein (In the Rhine) and Am leuchtenden sommermorgen (On a Gleaming Summer Morn), another artist who has matured with time. Pianist Lim Yan was more than mere accompanist, and as the final song Die Alten Bösen Lieder (The Old and Evil Songs) proved, his part extended long after tenor Garcia had sung his last note.

Six women shared duties in Three Songs Op.45 and Hermit Songs by American Samuel Barber, songs of a spiritual and other-worldly nature which provided a different kind of challenge. Subtlety was a virtue which soprano Laura Lim possessed, but she could do with greater heft and characterisation in the Op.45 songs written for the great German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

The five other sopranos had Leontyne Price’s act to emulate in the ten Hermit Songs, based on an ancient Irish writings. Rachel Ong (above) shook off nerves to deliver At St.Patrick’s Purgatory and St Ita’s Vision with good control in high registers, not an easy task. Rachel Lim displayed crystal clear diction in Church Bell at Night and the jazzy The Monk and his Cat. Moira Loh, already a veteran of many productions, was at her expressive best in The Heavenly Banquet and the brief but enigmatic Promiscuity.

Gwen Chua who sang The Crucifixion will build on confidence with time, but her passion in Sea Snatch was never in doubt. Finally Rebecca Li, the team’s most experienced singer, brought the cycle to an ecstatic but reflective close in The Praises of God and The Desire for Hermitage. Translations and surtitles for all the songs were screened, a good aid for audience appreciation, and all ten singers donned Asian ethnic costumes, which made it a feast for the eyes as well. 

Photographs by the kind permission of New Opera Singapore.

DIE FLEDERMAUS / New Opera Singapore / Review

DIE FLEDERMAUS

New Opera Singapore

Victoria Theatre

Sunday (27 July 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 July 2014 with the title "Patricia Mok helps demystify opera".

Die Fledermaus is the title of Johann Strauss the Younger’s most popular operetta, one that has been translated to many languages and performed the world over. New Opera Singapore’s production was acted and sung completely in English, the practice of using the vernacular being widely accepted universally. Thus only a pedant would object to the non-use of the original German, or carp at the title not being the far less poetic The Bat.

Fledermaus in whatever language has to be a sparkling and good-humoured affair, and New Opera Singapore under its Korean-born founder Jeong Ae Ree delivered in heaps and some more. In its favoured tradition of updating the classics, the setting was modern-day yuppie Singapore, with Adele as a Pinoy domestic and numerous references to Korean and Japanese pop culture, all the rage here these days. The ice was immediately broken and the comedy flowed unabated.

The casting with New Opera regulars was excellent. Rosalinde was sung by two home-grown sopranos Teng Xiang Ting and Rebecca Li on separate evenings. Li was her usual feisty self but touched with a vulnerability that made her endearing. Opposite her, David Charles Tay as hubby Eisenstein (both above) gave a totally believable portrayal of smug duplicity, which made it all the more satisfying when hoisted on his own petard.

Young SOTA student Moira Loh’s Adele stole the show with her Leticia Bongnino accent and had two big arias to impress with, including the famous Laughing Song. Even tenor Shaun Lee’s hopelessly in love Alfred, spouting lines from various tenor arias, had much to recommend.

Three Korean singers were invited to helm main cast roles: booming bass-baritone Park Jun Hyeok as the aggrieved Falke, David Daehan Lee as prison governor Frank and alto Son Jung A in the trousers (cross-dressing) role as an implausibly Japanese Orlovsky. Their spoken and sung English was just more than adequate, and surtitles were a great help here.

The set design by Shin Ji-Won and Brian Leong was simple yet effective, but did the party at Club Fledermaus have to look like something out of Patpong rather than Gangnam or Mohamed Sultan? Kim Sook Young’s stage direction was breezily communicative, providing lots of laughs from the audience. The sequence of Eisenstein and Frank impersonating Japanese patrons by desperately reciting Japanese brand names and clichés was a scream.

The orchestra conducted by Chan Wei Shing supported the fast-moving action well, and the small chorus complete with a quartet of pole-dancers gave the Second Act an unusually sleazy feel. The practice of inserting arias and ballets during this segment was passed over for the non-credited appearance of Channel 8 television comedian Patricia Mok as a very sober Barbara, taking the place of non-singing and usually inebriated prison attendant Frosch.

Filling the gap between the Second and Third Acts, her soliloquy in a combination of Singlish and Mandarin was a tour de force of stand-up comedy, casting snooks on singers, actors, musicians and essentially the entire entertainment industry. Mok’s appearance summed up the production’s ethos, which is to demystify the air of elitism surrounding opera and making the genre approachable. New Opera Singapore has succeeded again, with good singing and acting, and not a dull minute in between.

All photos with the kind permission of New Opera Singapore.

OPERA COMIQUE: AT THE AIRPORT / New Opera Singapore / Review

OPERA COMIQUE AT THE AIRPORT

New Opera Singapore

The Chamber @ The Arts House

Saturday (9 March 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 March 2013 with the title "The comedy of arias".

The Opera Comique series by New Opera Singapore is becoming a bit like those Carry On low budget comedies of the Sixties and Seventies, featuring a cast of familiar faces in variations on the theme of farcical plots, double entendres and more than a few good laughs.

Each of these opera capers features popular arias and duets strung together by some flimsy plotline. On this evening, the setting was the airport in Bali, where flirtations, misunderstandings and love matches take place between passengers, cabin crew, ground staff and Duty Free personnel. It was all very silly but the quality of singing was most encouraging.

The sopranos had a field day. Few might have expected the ease and level of projection afforded by Isyana Sarasvati (above) in Je veux vivre (Juliette’s Waltz Song) from Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. She was scintillating and simply brilliant. Closely matching her were Bethea How, 3^rd Prize winner in the Llangollen Eisteddfod last year, in Arditi’s swirling Parla Walzer, which brought on the loudest cheers.

Rebecca Li’s Mein Herr Marquis (Laughing Song) from Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus was infectious, as were her tittering giggles, while Moira Loh (below) had the audience in stitches in Mozart’s Batti batti, o bel Masetto (Don Giovanni), as she went on to batter her love interest. After this, there may be a new meaning to “Could you batti batti me?”

Of the male singers, baritone Jeremy Koh impressed most in Mozart’s Donne le mie fatte (Cosi Fan Tutte) with his clear ringing tone. Tenor Yap Joo How’s Questa o quella (Verdi’s Rigoletto) was convincing in his libertine aspirations, while Shaun Lee and Lim Jingjie were more than earnest in their efforts. Pianist Albert Lin, attired as an ICA immigration official, was unobtrusive while providing premium accompanying support.

It would seem that most the young singers trained by Korean soprano Jeong Ae Ree, founder of New Opera Singapore, were bleeding heart tenors or coloratura sopranos. Where were the altos or basses among the eight singers featured?

Thus this programme was skewed heavily towards soprano and tenor arias, which besides being slightly unbalanced and also on the short side. By the end of the hour, the conflicts had ceased and all on stage was kissing and making up to Lehar’s Lippen Schweigen from The Merry Widow.   

This cavil aside, it was all in good fun. With time and as the cast of New Opera Singapore matures, we might have local singing versions of Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor someday.