BAIBA SKRIDE PLAYS MOZART / SALIERI-MOZART DOUBLE BILL / Review

BAIBA SKRIDE PLAYS MOZART

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Wednesday (1 December 2021)

 

OPERA DOUBLE BILL:

SALIERI & MOZART

Singapore Lyric Opera

Esplanade Theatre

Friday (3 December 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 December 2021 with the title "Mozart tributes in orchestra and opera". 

One beneficiary of the current Covid pandemic has been the music of Mozart. Ironic as it seems, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has never played more Mozart in its 42-year history. Far from being staid or boring, new life has been breathed into these classics. Not content with merely sounding pretty, a perfection of form and execution was witnessed in prize-winning Latvian violinist Baiba Skride’s view of  Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.4 in D major.

 

One of his less showy works, its beauty lies in sheer lyricism, which Skride revealed from the outset. Her tone was lush, with a healthy vibrato that was not overdone and precise intonation throughout. She also projected well above the orchestra which did not mince notes in the accompaniment. Any concession for virtuosity took place in the cadenzas of all three movements, and these were also beautifully proportioned.

 

The orchestra led by French conductor Pierre Bleuse lent excellent support without trying to sound like those period instrument bands, and this vigour continued into Mozart’s Symphony No.40, one of just two symphonies cast in the minor key. The associated storms and stresses did not arrive, as the very familiar opening movement came across breezy rather than hectic.

 

This is music that takes a nice long breath, none more so in the expansive slow movement which was all elegance and grace. Even the relative urgency of the third movement soon dissolved into ebullience in the finale, which recalled the lively antics of Mozart’s comic operas.

 

Speaking of the theatre, Singapore Lyric Opera deserves credit for conceiving a Salieri-Mozart double bill of two short comic operas that were premiered simultaneously at Vienna’s Schonbrunn Palace one February day in 1786. Far from being bitter rivals, there existed a respectful and collegial relationship between Antonio Salieri and Mozart, but posterity has always favoured the latter.

 

Conducted by Lien Boon Hua, Salieri’s Prima La Musica e Poi Le Parole (First The Music, Then The Words) was performed before Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), both united by a common plot about artists, their occupational quirks and supposed rivalries. Tang Xinxin’s clever direction eschewed long dialogues in Italian and German, opting instead for English repartee between sung bits which greatly enhanced the appreciation and enjoyment of both operas.

 

There was a common cast, led by the excellent duelling sopranos Joyce Lee and Sylvia Lee, who came close to cat fights as each tried to gain an upper hand. Short excerpts from other Mozart operas were inserted into both operas, also to good effect. The men completed the buffo element for the farces, with David Tao as Poet/Buff squaring off against Daniel Fong’s Composer and Jonathan MacPherson’s Vogelsang. Their much smaller singing parts were made up by comedic acting and solid characterisations.

 

Plaudits also go to Dorothy Png’s set, lighting and constume design, which plumbed for traditional in Salieri in contrast with modernity in Mozart. The slick movements of curtains and backdrop while Mozart’s Overture to Der Schauspieldirektor was being played represented a symbolic changing of the guard. Whichever way one looked at it, Mozart still won.      

 

THE MOZARTEAN EXPERIENCE 2017 / ADDO Chamber Orchestra / Review

THE MOZARTIAN EXPERIENCE 2017

ADDO Chamber Orchestra

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (17 February 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 February 2017 with the title "Fun journey through Mozart's life and works".

The ADDO Chamber Orchestra's Mozartean Experience was a sequel to last year's successful concert which had the flavour of a “show and tell” class. A programme sheet given to the audience was designed like a tabloid daily, but the surprise came in lieu of traditional programme notes.

Seconds before conductor Clarence Tan gave his first down-beat, a bewigged blonde dressed in period costume gatecrashed the proceedings. It was Constanze Weber, widow of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who had travelled through time from 1791 to address a 21^st century Singaporean audience on the great Austrian composer's lives and times. Italian singer-actress Sabrina Zuber played such an irrepressible host with her comedic asides that she almost stole the show.

It was the music, however, which prevailed. First up was Antonio Salieri's short Sinfonia Veneziana, which the orchestra warmed up to with some degree of tentativeness. The ensemble comprising just 11 string players backed up by four wind players initially produced a raw and dry sound, but this soon improved in a hurry.

Constanze refuted the notion that Salieri was Mozart's rival and mortal enemy. Instead they were supportive colleagues with a common vision of making good music. As posterity had it, Mozart was gifted with more memorable tunes, like those in his Third and Fourth Horn Concertos, both in the key of E flat major.

Also introduced was Mozart's horn-playing friend Joseph Leutgeb, whose daytime job was that of a cheese-monger. Returning as soloist from the last Mozartean experience was young French hornist Alan Kartik Jairamin from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, who followed up his helpful demonstration of basic horn techniques with confident showings of both works.

He brought out a warm, burnished sound that highlighted the music's lyricism, and then went all virtuoso mode for the cadenzas. His reading of the better-known Fourth Concerto with its hunting romp of a finale proved a big hit with the audience, which lapped up his every turn and phrase.

To complete the evening's E flat major fare was the Symphony No.84 by Joseph Haydn, one of Mozart's teachers and the mentor who predicted his future greatness. The orchestra which had accompanied the horn concertos very well continued their good work under conductor Tan, now sporting a powdered wig (a la the movie Amadeus).

Jokes aside, this was a very credible performance of a rarely heard work. Its solemn opening soon gave way to an Allegro which bubbled ever so animatedly, fully conveying the humour typical of the composer. The slow movement was taken a a goodly pace, followed by a somewhat ungainly Scherzo and Trio, tinged with an infectious rusticity. Although the finale started with a hint of unsteadiness, this was smoothened out with a mercurial run to an exciting close.

For its next concert on 31 May, ADDO Chamber Orchestra turns its sights on another composing great – Ludwig van Beethoven.