QUEENS AND DIVAS OF THE BEL CANTO / Lirica Arts / Review

 

QUEENS AND DIVAS OF THE BEL CANTO 

Lirica Arts 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Thursday (17 April 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 April 2025 with the title "Lirica Arts' recital series combines outreach and education without dumbing down". 

Want to learn something about opera besides listening to wonderful singing? One could do worse than attending Lirica Arts’ Opera 101 recital series. Its carefully curated and meticulously researched concerts are what the musical scene really needs, genuine outreach and education with absolutely no dumbing down.

Shridar Mani did all the detailed research
for this excellent programme.

Its latest offering was a solid 95-minute treatise without intermission on the world of Italian bel canto opera. Listeners will already know something about this early 19th century’s operatic trend of seamless melodies and elaborate ornamentation, and the usual composer suspects. This concert, eruditely narrated by Shridar Mani and accompanied by pianist Samuel King, offered so much more about its interesting and often scandalous history.

It all began with castrati, young males surgically emasculated to retain pure unbroken voices allied with muscular heft. German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Il Crociato in Egitto (The Crusader in Egypt) of 1824 was the last opera to cast a castrato in a lead role. Armando’s aria Oh come rapida fuggi la speme was beautifully sung by Korean soprano Renata Hann, opening the evening on a pristine high.

Then came the lives of four historical sopranos, famed for their ability to sing like men, effectively replacing the castrati. Giuditta Pasta was responsible for two major roles, Gaetano Donizetti’s Anna Bolena (Anne Boleyn) and Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma.

Photo: Moonrise Studio

The dramatic duet Sul suo capo with French soprano Serine de Labaume and Malaysian mezzo-soprano Samantha Chong portraying Anne with her lady-in-waiting (and queenly successor) Jane Seymour was a touching display of sympathy between rivals. Here the acting also matched the singing.

Hann had the honour of singing bel canto’s most famous aria, Casta Diva from Norma, and she did so spotlessly. She was joined by Chong as fellow Druid priestess Adalgisa in the memorable duet Mira, O Norma, where their voices separated by the interval of a third was perfectly balanced on a knife edge before a race to the finish.

Photo: Moonrise Studio

Soprano Giulia Grisi was responsible for the role of Elvira in Bellini’s I Puritani, whose mad scene Qui la voce saw Labaume skillfully shift vocal gears from slow lament to outright rave. Norina from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale was also created for her, and the duet Pronto io son with baritone Martin Ng in a cameo as Malatesta provided the evening’s precious moments of comedy.

The final two historical sopranos were sisters Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot, daughters of the fanatical Spanish tenor and vocal pedagogue Manuel Garcia. Both were represented by Desdemona’s Willow Song from Gioachino Rossini’s Otello, its G minor melancholy with harp-like accompaniment lovingly captured by Hann. Chong accounted for O mio Fernando from Donizetti’s La Favorita which brought the concert to a satisfying close.

Before that, all three lady singers were united in the dramatic finale of Act 1 of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda (Mary Stuart) in a final climactic clash of queens and divas. One goes to the chopping block but not without making a big song and dance about it.

Photo: Moonrise Studio

NO TENORS ALLOWED / Lirica Arts / Review

NO TENORS ALLOWED

Lirica Arts

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (19 September 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 September 2021 with the title "Soprano and baritone get their dues in heartfelt duets".

 

The cheeky title marking the debut of newly-formed opera society Lirica Arts plays on the fact that tenors often steal the show in operas. Not this evening, they don’t, as the 90-minute concert centred wholly on duets for soprano and baritone.

 

Tenors usually portray heroes, while deeper-voiced baritones mostly play jealous rivals, fatherly and avuncular sorts, pitiable buffoons or outright villains. The soprano-baritone duet, while less glamourous, are often more complex and multi-layered. These still pack in emotional heft as amply demonstrated by soprano Teng Xiang Ting and baritone Martin Ng. Both singers are already  veterans having helmed pivotal roles despite their relative youth, and their experience showed.

 

Opening the show was Ng singing Tonio’s disclaimer in the Prologue of Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, advising listeners that the stage mirrors life, with lines of distinction often blurred. There was no accompanying orchestra but pianist Beatrice Lin’s contribution was so good that none was needed. Shridhar Mani, a most engaging host, filled in the intrigues between the genders.

 

A spirit of levity occupied duets from two comic operas. In Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Ng’s Malatesta plots subterfuge by getting Teng’s Norina to impersonate a woman of virtue in Pronto Io Son! In Dunque Io Son, Tu Non Mi Inganni from Rossini’s The Barber Of Seville, Teng’s Rosina is abetted by Ng’s Barber to have a tryst. In both instances, the chicanery involved revealed an instinctual and playful chemistry between the two.

 

Teng is the more expressive and better actor, her brightly ringing voice always a pleasure to behold. She was matched by Ng’s more stoic demeanor, whose steadfastness became a pillar of strength throughout. When the ante was upped in more serious duets, dramatics were also ratcheted accordingly, especially in the evening’s lengthiest duet.

 

Pura Siccome Un’Angelo was the focal point in Act II of Verdi’s La Traviata. The consumptive demi-monde Violetta’s act of self sacrifice following her lover’s father Germont’s pleas was angst-filled yet intensely lyrical, leaving the listener chastened and saddened on her behalf.

 

Two further bleeding chunks confirmed that duets could also lead to fatal consequences. Silvio! A Quest’iora from Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci was a follow up to the concert’s prologue. The love that united Nedda and Silvio was an illicit one. Their ardent proclamations, although realistic and lovingly voiced, provided brief bliss but concealed ill fates.  

 

The over-protective relationship between father and daughter in Verdi’s Rigoletto was fleshed out in Tutte Le Feste Al Tempio...Si Vendetta!, which had some of the evening’s most moving music. Regret and rage were conflicting emotions displayed by Teng and Ng respectively, the pair oblivious to the tragedy to follow.

 

Superb singing, enhanced by Tang Xinxin’s no nonsense direction, Theresa Chan’s evocative costumes and Zennie Casann’s effective make-up, laid bare the human emotions and frailties to be found in opera. One only wished the programme’s printed libretto and transliterations, rendered almost unreadable in dim lighting, were replaced by projected surtitles instead. Nonetheless, this was a fine first splash for Singapore’s newest opera company.