SONGS OF OUR FOREFATHERS III / Lirica Arts / Review

 

SONGS OF OUR FOREFATHERS III

Lirica Arts

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (26 September 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2025 with the title "Chinese art songs take centre stage in Lirica Arts' adventurous series".

Besides presenting chamber opera productions, Lirica Arts led by local baritone Martin Ng also lives up to its name by promoting the cause of art songs. In the third concert of its Songs of Our Forefathers series, some 19 Chinese art songs were performed, illustrating the sheer variety within this genre.

The Chinese language provided several millennia of source material, from Han dynasty (c.200 BC to 200 AD) texts through to the present day. Although presented in Mandarin, projected surtitles in both Chinese and English were a boon.

Beginning with songs accompanied by pianist Beatrice Lin, the evening felt like a recital of German lieder. Chinese soprano Peng Ying opened with three songs, Li Yan’s The Green Jadeite Bowl (On The First Night of the New Year), Wang Long’s The Ornamented Zither and Fu Jing’s Qing Ming (Tomb Sweeping Day), based on Han verse. Despite its sober content, the last asked, “Where is the wine shop?”, suggesting the ancients also had similar urges and vices as us. The songs were Romantic in idiom although through-composed rather than strophic in form.

Peng emoted well, her voice possessing heft, later flexing coloratura acrobatics in Xu Jingxin’s Fantasia of a Moonlit Night by the Spring River, which was spectacular. She also sang a Suzhou Pingtan number, Ode to the Butterfly, with lyrics by no less than Chairman Mao Zedong.

Local tenor Shaun Lee bared his heart and vulnerability in Huang Zi’s Homesickness and Liu Xue An’s Song of the Red Bean with words from the Qing dynasty. Baritone Ng’s songs juxtaposed polar sides of love relationships, Li Yan’s The Phoenix Seeking His Mate and To a Faithless Husband, the latter being a song of farewell after a change of heart.

Song dynasty polymath poet Su Shi’s words were celebrated after the intermission. Beijing Opera artist Tian Ping was introduced in Qingzhu’s The Yangtze River Flows East alongside tenor Lee. Her highly stylised singing, with nasal overtones, brought authenticism when heard on her own.

The union of Beijing opera and Western-styled singing in Huang Zi’s Song of the Southern Country in duet with Ng was however jarring in the extreme, like oil and water. Throw in Wang Yan Tong’s jinghu (the highest pitched huqin) with its piercing sonority in Yang Nailin’s Ode to the Pear Blossom, even voices struggle to get heard.

The highlight of the evening, also the longest song, was the world premiere of local composer Chua Jon Lin’s Melody of the River Town. Sung by baritone Ng, this was a contemporary work unafraid to experiment. String piano technique, including directly plucking the strings produced an otherwordly effect, over which Ng mused about separation and homecoming. Moving from a sedate pace to agitation, heavy chords and Bartok-like ostinatos were likely to move emotions.

The two-hour concert closed with all the performers joined by host Wenxia (also a soprano) for Zhong Xingmin’s Lan Ting Xu (Orchid Pavilion Preface), based on ancient calligraphy by Wang Xizhi, and popularised by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Jay Chou. The old met the new this evening and with its hits and misses, Lirica Arts is encouraged to continue searching and discovering.

PUCCINI - A LIFE IN 7 WOMEN / Lirica Arts / Review

 

PUCCINI – A LIFE IN 7 WOMEN 

Lirica Arts 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Friday (2 August 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 August 2024 with the title "Japanese soprano Mako Nishimoto sings with power in Lirica Arts' Puccini tribute".

Commemorating the centenary of his death, local chamber opera company Lirica Arts presented a tribute to Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini by performing highlights from eight operas spanning the years 1883 to 1924. Curated and presented by Shridar Mani, much research and detailed history was crammed into 100 illuminating minutes of music and oration. 

Puccini was deeply in love with the female voice. The roles of Cio-Cio San, Tosca, Mimi, Turandot and Liu come to mind, but the seven women in the title also included Puccini’s ambitious mother Albina and his mistress-turned-wife Elvira. All of them shaped his musical life and helped seal his reputation as Western classical opera’s most popular and perhaps greatest-ever composer. 

Given its subject, sopranos dominated the concert accompanied by splendid collaborative pianist Beatrice Lin. Korean soprano Renata Hann opened the concert with Anna’s aria Non ti scordar di me from Puccini’s first opera Le Villi (The Fairies), revealing a sweetness of tone and excellent vocal control. 

As each opera was presented chronologically, Manon Lescaut was next. Japanese soprano Mako Nishimoto, who stole the show in Singapore Lyric Opera’s 2013 production of Madama Butterfly, displayed a healthy ringing vibrato in In quelle trine morbide. Opposite her, Des Grieux’s aria Donna non vidi mai sung by tenor Shaun Lee was put to a strain at its highest notes. 

The excerpts from La Boheme came from the Third Act. Donde lieta usci was Mimi’s touching aria of separation from her lover Rodolfo, with Nishimoto at her most sympathetic. Following that was the evening’s only quartet, Addio dolce svegliare alla mattina, with the opera’s two couples (Mimi and Rodolfo, Musetta and Marcello) breaking up, but for different reasons and to tragicomic effect. 

The concert’s other male singer was baritone Martin Ng, founder-director of Lirica Arts. His imperious role in the Te Deum as villainous police chief Baron Scarpia in Tosca was convincing for its gravity and grim determination. The opera’s finest aria, Vissi d’arte, belonged to Nishimoto’s Tosca, whose powerful performance will be remembered by many present. 

And who was not waiting for her Madama Butterfly? She did not sing the familiar Un bel di vedremo but rather the opera’s heart-wrenching final minutes in Tu tu piccolo iddio, where Cio-Cio San’s act of seppuku becomes inevitable. 

Two relative rarities came in Ch’il bel sogno di doretta from La Rondine (The Sparrow) and Senza Mamma from Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica), both brilliantly helmed by Hann. Dramatic soprano roles should not overshadow those of a lyric soprano’s, and this concert succeeded by highlighting this aspect. 

Turandot was Puccini’s final opera, left uncompleted at the time of his premature demise. The vast contrasts between blood-thirsty Turandot and self-sacrificing Liu were laid bare by Nishimoto and Hann in an astonishing sequence that included In questa reggia (Turandot), Tanto amore segreto and Tu che di gel sei cinta (Liu) before closing with Liu’s Funeral. And that was where Puccini finally laid down his pen.

EVERYBODY LOVES A SOIREE: IN THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY

EVERYBODY LOVES A SOIREE:

IN THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY

Another month, another soiree. This one was, however, slightly different, being guests of Germany's Head of Culture, Press and Public Diplomacy in Singapore, Ying Huang at her lovely townhouse in Joo Chiat.

It's been a hot and sultry month of May, and what better way than to celebrate it with a liederabend (evening of song): a performance of Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe (A Poet's Love, Op.48, with words by Heinrich Heine), its first song being Im wunderschoenen Monat Mai (In Wonderful Beautiful Month of May). The singer was young local tenor Shaun Lee, partnered by none other than Ying herself. 

They performed all 16 songs, and Shaun was praised for his sung German by the many German speakers in attendance. Ying was a keen virtuoso accompanist as well, mastering much of Schumann's tricky but idiomatic piano writing. 

It was a lovely evening with wine, cheese, crackers, muffins, curry puffs (Polar, no less) and pizza, but most important of all was the company of like-minded people who love culture and the finer things in life. 

It was most sporting to have the
printed texts in both German and English!
Cultural diplomacy at its best.

There was even time left over for
Ying and Pianomaniac to sight read
movements from Schubert's Trout Quintet.

It's close to midnight,
when the cats come out to play.

INVICTUS / Art Song Recital by Shaun Lee & Nicholas Ho

INVICTUS Art Song Recital

SHAUN LEE, Tenor

NICHOLAS HO, Piano

Baroque House, 29 Rowell Road

Sunday (8 October 2023)

Baroque House is a pre-war shophouse located in the heart of Little India. Located on 29 Rowell Road, it has become a cosy and informal space for arts events and private dining. Its insalubrious location just a stone's throw away from Singapore's seediest red-light district seems just like the right place for serious and good art to flourish. Bohemian chic? Its entrance even has a neon sign (by Sonia B.Ong) that challenges one to ponder the idea that art and grim reality could sit comfortably side by side.

The performing space is on its second floor, overlooking residences which have yet to be gentrified. A bright red Baldwin baby grand piano, in good tune, rests invitingly in a space that sits about 25-30 people. There is no ceiling, and one gets to peer at the roof, one side decorated with an old stucco relief and the other bare brick. The sound can get quite resonant especially with the reverberation from Shaun Lee's stentorian tenor voice.

The 30-minute art song recital was a classic case of quality rather than quantity, as he and pianist Nicholas Ho made every minute count. The matinee opened with five songs by Ho, settings of words by James Joyce. His music is lyrical in the best tradition of Romantic songwriters, and have highly detailed piano parts which only a virtuoso pianist can conceive of. Shaun's voice thus had to transcend the pianist's multitudes of notes, and he did so admirably.

Ho's songs were a summation of the Romantic art song tradition, from Schubert and Schumann to present day composers like the late Ned Rorem. These were amply reflected by the choice of the other songs on the programme, including Samuel Barber's The Daisies, Richard Strauss' Zueignung, Wagner's Schmerzen (from Wesendonck Lieder) and Rachmaninov's Zdes Khorosho (How Fair This Spot).

That this young Singaporean's early song cycle could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the greats of vocal writing is a testament to his artistic vision and assimilative abilities. The recital closed with Ho's Invictus (words by William Earnest Henley), a song influenced by Rachmaninov's big chords and heroic gestures, well realised in its final lines, "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul".  

American pianist Tedd Joselson and
celebrity surgeon Susan Lim also attended.

The small audience, including luminaries from Singapore's high society, clearly enjoyed this musical offering, and one looks forward to more such events in this exciting and edgy venue.

More about the Baroque House:

BAROQUE HOUSE - Home (baroquehaus.com)