Cardiff Singer of the World 1 (Long)
Kate Lang
Cardiff Singer of the World 1997
St. David's Hall, Cardiff, Wales
15/6/97 – 21/6/97
Needless to say, all opinions expressed in this post are my own, unless
otherwise qualified.
For those not in the know, the Singer of the World competition is a
bienniel event which has now been running for 14 years. It's a slightly
different competition from the norm, because it was conceived from the
outset for television broadcasting. The competition features 25 singers,
all representing different countries, in "qualifying" concerts, plus a
final concert from which the title-holder will be selected. Each singer
has to present a programme of approximately 20 minutes, but the choice is
completely free within the time limitation. Singers are selected by
audition during the preceeding year or so.
The First Prize is an award of £10,000 plus a handsome selection of
contracts. There are no second, third places etc., but there is also a
Lieder Prize, for the best interpretation of Lieder during the competition,
which carries an aware of £2,000. Each of the five qualifying concerts
produces a winner – however, these five singers are not necessarily the
five singers who will appear in the Final concert, and from whom both the
Singer of the World and the Lieder Prize will be chosen (don't ask – it's a
little like figure-skating competitions!). However, given the television
coverage, as well as the numerous agents and talent scouts who attend this
week of competition, *any* place in the six concerts is of considerable
interest to these young singers. The age spread this year goes from 25 to
34.
PART ONE
Concert One
Orchestra of Welsh National Opera
Carlo Rizzi - conductor
Contestants:
Marian Pop (baritone, 26, Roumania)
Gabriella Sborgi (mezzo, 25, Italy)
Camilla Nylund (soprano, 29, Finland)
Steve Davislim (tenor, 30, Australia)
Yoshimi Tatsuno (soprano, 33, Japan)
Only the final concert is covered in full (and live) by the BBC, otherwise
you get to see extracts of the previous evening's concert, and then can
listen to the full concert on Radio 3 in the early hours of the morning.
Not having geared myself up to this regime properly at the start of the
week, I did not, unfortunately, hear all the music performed on the first
night, so my grounds for judgement were somewhat restricted.
First on was a light baritone with an agreeable stage presence, but a
relatively uninteresting voice. Neither his Donizetti nor his Verdi (the
Death of Posa from "Don Carlo") were of great interest. Then he performed
a Roumanian song, which was certainly interesting, but suggested to me
right a way a tendency which has been confirmed as the competition
progresses – many singers are incorporating an "art-song" simply in order
to qualify for the Lieder Prize and to make themselves look more "rounded"
as singers than they were perhaps intended to be – I'll return to this
point later. This singer came alive with his "Largo al factotum" (Rossini
: Barber of Seville), but too late to redeem himself from an overall
impression of blandness.
The vitality and confidence of the young Italian mezzo, Gabriella Sborgi
came as a refreshing change. Her strongest point were three Spanish Songs
by Obradors, delivered with vivid characterisation and charm. Her operatic
extracts were a little less successful; a "Smanie implacabile" (Mozart :
Così fan tutte) so hurried as to appear hysterical, and "Una voce poco fa"
(Rossini : Barber of Seville) with a barely acceptable level of coloratura
technique. Considering that both Horne and Sutherland are sitting on the
jury this year, this was a particularly unfortunate choice for Ms. Sborgi.
Nevertheless, I liked her very much, and hope that it's merely inexperience
that produced a programme that hardly showed her to her best advantage.
Camilla Nylund came across as a long, cool drink; a beautiful, elegant
ash-blonde with a clear, though slightly thin soprano and the first really
adventurous programme of the evening; Mozart, Britten, Schubert, Sibelius
and Dvorak, which is a lot to pack into 20 minutes, but displayed
outstanding linguistic skills. To begin with "Dove sono" (Mozart :
Marriage of Figaro), however, was rash, as was the inclusion of Schubert –
a mistake *all* those who, so far, have chosen Schubert, have made. She
redeemed herself with a fine interpretation of Sibelius' "War det en
Dröm?", but my impresion of a certain distant quality in her performances
was confirmed by her performance of "O silver moon" (Dvorak : Rusalka), in
which I felt that her phrasing was too short. However, it proved a popular
choice with the audience.
We all know how rare tenors are. This year, however, seems to be a
healthy vintage; there are no less than six of them amongst these
competitors, and the first came now. Steve Davislim made an excellent
start with "Every valley" (Handel : Messiah), beautifully controlled in
every respect. He then blundered a little with "Ah, lève-toi, soleil"
(Gounod : Roméo et Juliette) which despite some attractive moments was
clearly beyond the capabilities of his light tenor. I did not hear his
lieder contribution (a Brahms and two Strauss), and felt that he was rather
handicapped by the orchestra in his rendition of "Here I stand" (Stravinsky
: The Rake's Progress), but that piece was much better suited to his voice,
and his precision of style came to the fore once more, as well as a
suitably bright upper register.
Ms. Tatsuno clearly has a taste for the (melo)dramatic. She restricted
herself to Italian turn-of-the-century (Ponchielli, Respighi, Puccini,
Verdi), which obviously did her no favours with the jury, since no
versatility was displayed. Nevertheless, she is very much at home here,
and I have to say that I'd be quite happy to see her on the cast list at my
local opera house. In particular, she displayed a lovely *fil di voce* in
"Ritorna vincitor" (Verdi : Aida)
The evening's winner was Steve Davislim.
Concert Two
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Graeme Jenkins - conductor
Contestants:
Erla Kollaku (soprano, 28, Albania)
Anders Larsson (baritone, 28, Sweden)
Gwyn Hughes Jones (tenor, 27, Wales)
Sonora Vaice (soprano, 28, Latvia)
Arutjun Kotchinian (bass, 30, Armenia)
Almost from the outset it was clear that this evening was of a higher
calibre than the previous one. This is why the organisers have developed
this system of selecting the five highest marked singers for the Final,
rather than just taking the five heat winners, and when you realise that at
least three, if not four of this night's performers were distinctly
superior to *anyone* in the previous nght's round, you understand why.
Erla Kollaku began with an attractive performance of "Depuis le jour" (G.
Charpentier : Louise), but neither of her Schubert songs were of great
interest (especially not a painfully slow "Gretchen am Spinnrade"), and she
completely fluffed her final top C at the end of Ann Trulove's
Cavatina/Cabaletta (Stravinsky : The Rake's Progress) – to pick up the
figure-skating analogy again, she sat down on her triple axel.
She was followed by a fine, if slightly stolid Swedish baritone. But
stolid is exactly what Valentin (Gounod : Faust) is, and I could still be
persuaded that Anders Larssen was just acting very well. This was another
serious lieder contender, with two Wolf songs, including an excellent
"Abschied", and Strauss's "Zueignung". On the other hand, as Christa
Ludwig (BBC guest expert for the evening) remarked, he needs to learn to
sing below mezzo-forte. In addition, he too tackled the Death of Posa
(Verdi : Don Carlo) and was audibly tiring before the end.
Everyone was waiting for the next singer, of course, the local boy, and a
tenor to boot! Gwyn Hughes Jones started his singing career as a baritone,
and I have to admit I tend to like those voices; there's a richness of
timbre that many other tenors lack. He has a good sense of theatre; the
recitative "Ella mi fu rapita" (Verdi : Rigoletto) was excellent,
well-paced and vivid, though the aria afterwards was a little bland. He
blotted his copybook for me with the start of Schubert's "Nacht und Träume"
– I've accompanied that song often enough to know *exactly* how difficult
it is to come in with just the right degree of sound, and Jones wavered –
but then redeemed himself with a lovely performance of Rachmaninoff's
"Lilacs". He followed that up with "Spring Waters", but, as usual, I was
listening more to the piano than the singer ;-) His crowd-pleaser was
"Salut! Demeure chaste et pure" (Gounod : Faust). He belted out the top C
rather, but then managed a nicely-controlled diminuendo on it, which was
rather impressive, and certainly enthused the public no end.
However, Jones was just the start of the good stuff. Next up was a
Latvian soprano with a glittering coloratura technique, the first real
coloratura of the contest. She too was a "lip-service" lieder performer,
and the less said about her Schubert the better, but she began with "Bel
raggio lusinghier" (Rossini : Semiramide), complete with stratospheric top
notes, and concluded with Violetta's big scene from Act I of "La Traviata"
(Verdi), including a dizzyingly rapid "Sempre libera". It wasn't what
you'd call a sensitive interpretation, but it was pretty exciting.
And then Khan Kontchak walked on stage. I kid you not; six feet-plus,
shoulder-length, thick, black hair, a luxuriant moustache, and the profile
of a hawk. Of course, he's a bass! He also has that magnificent air of
self-confidence that all good Eastern European performers have – I don't
know if it's in the blood or in the training, but it's really quite
unmistakeable, and immensely attractive. Still, to tackle Philip II (Verdi
: Don Carlo) at 30 takes real guts. Arutjun Kotchinian had the guts, the
voice, and the presence. For such a young man, he delivered a truly
remarkable performance; when he repeated the phrase "Ella giammai m'amo",
right at the end of the aria, it was done in a *mezza voce* of
heartbreaking intensity.
Then he delivered an extraordinary *interactive* Catalogue Aria (Mozart :
Don Giovanni). It's well known that the contestants have very little time
to rehearse with the orchestra, never mind the conductor, and one
automatically makes allowances for differences in tempo between soloist and
orchestra. But Kotchinian seemed to *incorporate* the conductor into his
aria, addressing him directly, so that there was no rift between him and
the orchestra, illustration of intelligence at work. Finally, he delivered
a superbly, blackly comic rendition of Mussorgsky's "Song of the Flea"
(Stravinsky orchestration).
I was impressed, the audience was impressed, and every commentator I've
heard, either then or since, was impressed – but not the jury, or not
enough to give Kotchinian the evening's prize. That went to Gwyn Hughes
Jones, to the evident delight of the Welsh audience. The noise of jaws
hitting the floor in my living-room was deafening. Oh well, that's
competitions for you…
Concert Three
WNO Orchestra
Carlo Rizzi - conductor
Contestants:
Philippe Georges (baritone, 32, France)
Catherine Croall (soprano, 33, Scotland)
Yevgeni Shapovalov (tenor, 29, Israel)
Guang Yang (mezzo, 26, China)
John Relyea (bass-baritone, 25, Canada)
It *should* have been 5 singers, but during the rehearsals in the
afternoon, Yevgeni Shapovalov discovered he had no voice (the Welsh mists
must have gotten to him), and had to withdraw. Which left only four.
Philippe Georges is a light baritone, possibly even that most rare of
creatures, a *baryton-martin*. Certainly the most striking aspect of this
programme was a large extract of the Balcony Scene from "Pelléas et
Mélisande" (Debussy), which was as welcome as it was unusual. However, the
voice per se is not particularly attractive, even if the delivery is good.
This was another "lip-service" lieder performance (an early Verdi, and a
very poor "Stille Tränen (Schumann) – although I tend to think that
anything by Debussy, including "Pelléas" should be considered in the
"art-song" category :-)). I'm afraid I've never been keen on "O Nadir,
tendre ami" (Bizet : Pearl Fishers), the guy just bleats too much, and
Georges couldn't do anything to alter my opinion on that point.
Catherine Croall is comparatively new to solo performance; she spent some 6
years in the chorus of Scottish Opera before deciding to take the plunge.
Her programme was probably the most interesting of the evening, and
displayed a fine sensibility, but also something I'd almost call timidity,
impeding an otherwise attractive soprano voice. "Von ewiger Liebe"
(Brahms) was a mistake, requiring a much more forthcoming attitude than she
could deliver, but her Copland ("Long time ago") was excellent. That kind
of luminous transparency is obviously her strong point; she was able to
evoke it in the Massenet ("Il est doux", Hérodiade), but her attack at the
start of phrases was really too tentative to create the right impression.
The contrast became all the more marked when the next contestant came
along. Guang Ying also began with a French aria from around the same
period, an extremely rarely heard Gounod piece, beautifully delivered
vocally. Her French was just adequate, but considering the problems that
any Asiatic singer must face when tackling Western languages, it was quite
respectable. She followed it up with the best Schubert performance to date
in "An die Musik" – still not ideal, but her vocalline was admirable – and
Schumann's "Er, der herrlichste von Allen" (from Frauenliebe und Leben) was
excellent. She demonstrated a warm, yet bright mezzo, with an effortless
dynamic range, and she concluded by showing a nice sense of mischief and a
good command of coloratura in another rendition of "Una voce poco fa". She
kept her ornamentation to a minimum, but used the opportunity to show that
her lower register was as secure as her upper one. At this stage, I think
that most of us were sold, and that it would take something extra-special
to give her any real competition on this evening.
John Relyea certainly tried. He began with an excellent rendition of "The
Lord worketh wonders" (Handel : Judas Maccabeus), strong and stylish, but
then sang a rather peculiar "Se vuol ballare" (Mozart : Marriage of
Figaro), and two Tchaikovsky songs which confirmed the impression I had
begun to form; that he has a rather short, under-supported top register.
"La calunnia" (Rossini : Barber of Seville) did nothing to remedy the
situtation.
In short, there was no contest: Guang Ying was clearly the most
accomplished singer, and the jury duly confirmed.
Thank you for staying with me for such a long post. Coverge of the
Concerts 4 and 5, and the Final, should be posted some time on Sunday.
Kate