January 2001 - Nr. 1
Views and Reviews
by Alidë Kohlhaas
Christmas, New Year and Y2K will all be behind us by the time you read this, yet they will still be in our memory, and one hopes, in a pleasant form. One of those pleasant memories is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Christmas Concert with the "king’singers". This English vocal ensemble entertained its audience royally, living up to its fine reputation as one of the finest a cappella groups currently singing.
The
six singers have an outstanding repertoire of songs, ranging from 16th
century madrigals to modern songs, including jazz. Their program on Dec. 21
was devoted solely to the theme of Christmas.
The TSO, present in reduced numbers to act mostly as an occasional background entertainment, did, however, give a fine performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Troika as an opening number. It also played the overture to Peter Illich Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker in the second part of the program in a rather diminished form. I say this because the orchestra had not planned to perform this number, but instead was to have played John Rutter’s music to The Wind in the Willows with text by David Grant, based on Kenneth Grahame’s delightful children’s book of the same name. Alas, it was not to be. Winter weather kept the group captive at the Boston airport, and it arrived a mere hour before concert time at Roy Thomson Hall. Hence, no time for rehearsal, and no time to set up Wind in the Willows. Instead, the TSO stepped in with The Nutcracker, and the king’singers added a number of additional Christmas songs not listed in the program. It all worked out well, though some youngsters in the audience may have been disappointed for a short time.
The king’singers took us on a Christmas journey from the
ancient world to the modern, across Europe and through the United States.
They gave us touchingly sacred moments, and some joyously irreverent ones
with songs like Born on a New Day, In the Bleak Midwinter, Gaudete and Santa
Claus is Coming to Town, among others. The audience also had a chance to
show its stuff by singing along to O Come, O Come Emmanuel and Hark! The
Herald Angels Sing.
On the down side, there was an uncalled for anti-Americanism in their comments, and one wondered why it had not bothered to include Canada’s famous Huron Carol in its repertoire of international songs. It would have been a welcome Christmas present for us all. But, one might say, all was forgiven, when the king’singers gave us an encore of a most tenderly sung Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht (Silent Night, Holy Night). The standing ovation that the audience accorded the singers was well deserved.
Lyric
baritone Russell Braun and lyric tenor Michael Schade, who both make their
homes in Halton Region when not performing abroad or across Canada, have
been friends for many years. This comes very much across when they perform
together, especially when they sing the duet from George Bizet’s The Pearl
fishers. Now the two have joined forces on a new CD, Serata italiana, on the
CB Records SM 5000 series.
It is an outstanding recording of some of Italy’s finest composers. The CD’s sound is clear and the diction of the songs is superb. The two singers obviously are enjoying what they are presenting to their audience. There are 14 songs by Gioacchino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, and Guiseppe Verdi. All are sung not only with technical virtuosity, but also with an emotional richness that can be clearly perceived by the listener. They are accompanied throughout by the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, which gives excellent performances throughout under the baton of its conductor, Richard Bradshaw. [Serata italiana, Volume Two: Italian Operatic Arias and Duets, featuring Michael Schade, tenor, and Russell Braun, baritone; CBC Records, SM 5000 Series, SMCD5203, 73:42 minutes]
Also
under the Christmas tree was Enjoying Opera with Dale Harris. In this
four-CD set Harris takes the listener through four operas, La Bohème,
Carmen, La Traviata, and The Magic Flute. The singers include Renato Scotto,
Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Roberta Peters, Fritz
Wunderlich, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and various orchestras.
Not only does this set open up these operas to listeners unfamiliar with opera, but it also offers the finest of performances, aided by the excellent introductions and explanations by Harris. This professor of humanities and art history at Cooper Union in New York frequently writes not only for The New York Post, Opera News, Opera Quarterly and Opera Canada, but also for newspapers in Britain and throughout the US.
[Enjoying Opera with Dale Harris, Penguin-Highbridge Audio, HBP 39185, 4-CD set, 240 minutes]
Comments to: alide@echoworld.com
