Aprile Millo
The presence of esteemed and legendary soprano Aprile Millo must have been an inspiration for the young artists who entertained us Sunday at the annual Winner's Concert of the Giulio Gari Foundation. What a superb legacy of the late tenor! Awarding young singers is a not only a source of funding but an encouragement in a world that offers lots of heavy work for slim rewards.
Sunday's concert gave us the opportunity to acquaint ourself further with the gifts of seven young artists, all of whom we have heard before and enjoyed. The splendid Mary Pinto accompanied them with flourish.
Let's do "ladies first"! We have reviewed Soprano Luna Seongeun Park a half dozen times recently, her having won awards from all of the award giving foundations in New York. What impressed us is her tackling so many different arias in different languages and styles and excelling at all of them. On Sunday, she commanded rapt attention from the audience as she created the character of Musetta who commands attention from the crowd at Café Momus in Puccini's La Bohême.
Concluding the program was a duet with Son Jin Kim, in which she created a not-so-unwilling Zerlina who holds out for a credit card before exiting with the Don Giovanni of Mr. Kim, about whom more later. It was a clever wrinkle in Mozart's opera and the audience enjoyed it immensely. This gifted young soprano has many more roles ahead of her.
Mezzo-soprano Ruijia Dong employed a pleasing legato as she interpreted "O ma lyre immortale" from Gounod's lesser known opera Sappho. There was a divine depth and fine facility in French that pleased the ear. This was quite a change from our recollection of her weirdly costumed Ruggiero in Händel's Alcina at Mannes College for Music. As you may have guessed we prefer to focus on the voices than on trying to figure out some director's self important concept.
We really enjoyed Ms. Dong's performance of Angelina's final aria from Rossini's Cenerentola "Non più mesta". This is the test of any mezzo's mettle what with its rapid fire fioritura and large leaps. Our singer passed with flying colors and managed to also create a sympathetic character leaving us with pleasure at her "happy ever after" condition.
This was our second time hearing soprano Anna Thompson in a month, since she just won an award from The Gerda Lissner Foundation. She really got into the role of Rosalinde pranking her husband in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. Both slow and fast sections were compelling and the German was on point.
As for the men, the afore mentioned bass Son Jin Kim made a fine impression in this generally late maturing fach. He showed a real flair for comedy in Don Basilio's comic aria "La calunnia" from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. His technical assurance permitted a gradual buildup of excitement and his well thought out gestures contributed to the success of the performance.
This very extroverted aria was finely contrasted with the more introspective "Cavatina" from Rachmaninoff's Aleko in which Mr. Kim sustained the sad mood of loss--loss of youth and loss of love, since his fickle Zemfira has abandoned him for a young lover. There was an effective contrast between his melancholy first section and the second section in which he remembers a happier time.
We had one more opportunity to take the measure of Mr. Kim's talent when he took the role of Don Giovanni seducing Zerlina in Mozart's eponymous opera. So this marvelous bass gave us a dose of fun, a dose of melancholy and one of manipulation, all within an hour!
We also got to hear two fine tenors. We first reviewed Ben Reisinger when he was a baritone and noted his superb upper register in "O vin, dissippe la tristesse" from Thomas' Hamlet. Then we heard him at a master class when he was struggling with the transition. We are pleased to report that the transition is now a complete success. He completely captured Lensky's pathos in "Kuda, kuda" from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. An appropriate vibrato lent just the right color to his voice and his command of dynamics was best appreciated in a delicate and moving diminuendo. Furthermore he handled the linguistics well, not allowing the difficult consonants to cheat the vowels.
The other tenor Alec Carlson performed "O tu che in seno agli'angeli" from one of our favorite Verdi operas La Forza del Destino. We observed a fine Italianate embouchure, beautiful legato phrasing, and a reassuring lack of tension at the top of the register. The long held "money note" was lovely. We have reviewed Mr. Carlson a number of times, at competitions and at Santa Fe Opera. We are impressed that he has such a diverse repertoire.
We also heard a fine baritone who delighted the audience with "Some Enchanted Evening" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. We have no problem appreciating this as an aria from an American opera; but in spite of a worthy performance there was something missing, something cultural. The character of Emile de Becque is a specific one. He is French and he has his secrets. Falling in love with an American Army nurse was unexpected and the singer needs to convey the wonder of it all. Very few singers nowadays study the character and the situation, so performances tend to come across as generic and imitative. I hope that Yoonsoo Jang will put in a bit more work towards making the aria his own. We heard him recently creating the character of Dr. Malatesta in Donizetti's Don Pasquale so we know he is up to the challenge.
It was a fine evening and a wonderful opportunity to catch up with citizens of Planet Opera and to hear young artists who will carry the torch into the future. All we need is a small opera house in Manhattan so we can put them all to work!
© meche kroop
