United Kingdom Scottish Opera’s The Verdi Collection: Eri Nakamura (soprano), Katherine Aitken (mezzo-soprano), Peter Auty (tenor), Lester Lynch (baritone), Jihoon Kim (bass), The Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Stuart Stratford (conductor). Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 11.2.2023. (SRT)
Extracts from Verdi operas carried out in live performance:
La forza del destino – Overture; La vita è inferno… O tu che in seno agli angeli; Final scene
Otello – Willow Song and Ave Maria
Don Carlo – Restate! Presso all amia persona; Ella giammai m’amò; Death of Rodrigo
Un ballo in maschera – Morrò, ma prima in grazia
Les vêpres siciliennes – Ballet – The Four Seasons: Summer
La traviata – Act II, Scene 1
All concert events of operatic excerpts are intrinsically unsatisfying, even when, like this one, they’re dedicated to a specific composer. It isn’t solely the truth that you don’t have the artifice of the theatrical staging and designs to assist the viewers get swept up within the drama. More severely than that, no sooner does one aria or scene construct up its head of steam than it’s lower off and changed by one other. So there’s a jukebox impact that’s unavoidable, and it usually outweighs the benefits you acquire from listening to the orchestra unleashed from the pit.
That stated, this live performance was higher than most. It didn’t keep away from the issues above (it couldn’t!) however it was frequently partaking thanks primarily the rock-star high quality of the orchestral taking part in, which was one of the best I’ve heard on this repertoire in a very long time, and never simply because the music may breathe within the house of the Usher Hall stage. No, there was a sit-up-and-take-notice high quality to the orchestra proper from the cannon fireplace brass that opened the live performance with the overture to La forza del destino. That gave solution to whirling, sinuously darkish strings and song-like wind taking part in that opened the live performance in one of the best method possible and didn’t fluctuate in high quality all through. The instrumental solos had been bitingly dramatic, too, be it within the cello of King Philip’s Don Carlo soliloquy and Amelia’s Morrò ma prima in grazia, or the oboe within the ballet music of Les vêpres siciliennes, or the dolorous clarinet that accompanied Violetta’s letter to Alfredo and Alvaro’s lament in Forza. Conductor Stuart Stratford, who can be the corporate’s Music Director, described the orchestra because the ‘beating heart’, and their anchoring of the night was constantly of the very highest high quality.
The soloists had been a bit of extra assorted. The decide of them was tenor Peter Auty, who sang the heroes Alvaro and Alfredo with heroic dynamism, even when he was often pinched on the high. Soprano Eri Nakamura improved after a gap Willow Song that attacked from beneath the word. The extra dramatic gadgets, particularly the dying scene in Forza, suited her higher, and her Violetta was very heat. Similarly, baritone Lester Lynch had a squally opening quantity as Rodrigo in Don Carlo, and his dying scene didn’t transfer me a bit, however he warmed up noticeably, and he was movingly lyrical as Germont père. Brindley Sherratt needed to withdraw because the marketed bass soloist, and whereas Jihoon Kim was a noble alternative, the vibrato in his voice didn’t settle all evening. Longsuffering mezzo-soprano Katherine Aitken dutifully shuffled on and off as varied servants.
I may have carried out with much less, thoughts you. Ending the live performance at 10.15pm was asking quite a bit, and Stratford ought to have proven extra restraint in his trolley sprint via Verdi’s center and late intervals. Still, the singing was largely good, and the orchestral taking part in was wonderful. On stability you’ll be able to chalk that up as a win.
Simon Thompson