WE HAD A BALL

Raul Melo, David Gvinianidze, Tamar Iveri, Arsen Soghomonyan, Ruslana Koval, Natasha Novitskaia, Olga Lisovskaya, Ludmila Fesenko, Alexandra Naumenko (accompanist) Victoria Ulanovskaya (accompanist), Anna Kolkhida, Zachary James, William Meinert, Shaina Martinez, Natasha Novitskaia, Wooyoung Yoon. (photo by Ellen Godfrey)

Guest review by Ellen Godfrey....

Talents of the World concluded their highly successful three day Festival at Carnegie Hall with a Christmas Ball, described as a merry evening of opera, operetta, international songs and Christmas Carols. And a merry evening it was. Right from the beginning, when several couples waltzed onto the stage, it was evident that this would be a joyful evening.  The wonderful baritone David Gvinianidze, who is the President and founder of Talents of the World, welcomed the audience to the concert.

The evening featured the four winners of the Talents of the World’s first vocal competition in New York City and they were all amazing. Tenor Wooyoung Yoon, brought down the house early in the evening with his performance of the difficult tenor bel canto aria…”Ah mes amis” from Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment.  I have heard him sing this aria several times, and each time he adds a little something different.  After he sang the first part of the aria, the audience erupted in applause…which was echoed even louder after the fast moving cabaletta with the 9 high C’s. He has wonderful resonance and is delightful on stage.  He immediately connects with the audience.

Following Wooyoung Yoon, was the mezzo soprano winner Megan Moore, who performed Cenerentola’s aria “Nacqui All’Affanno…non più mesta.”  Megan has a lightly colored mezzo-soprano, even from top to bottom and with excellent coloratura singing.  She also portrayed the character of Cenerentola well.

Shaina Martinez, the soprano winner, was totally delightful singing and acting the comic romanza, “Carcelaras" from the Spanish zarzuela Las Hijas de Zebedeo. She had great fun singing it. She related with the audience who showed their delight in her performance and her beautiful soprano voice.

For a change of pace, the bass winner, Zachary James sang Javert’s song “Stars,” from the musical Les Miserables. He has a fine bass voice and good presence on stage.

Another young bass was William Meinert who sang Varlaam’s song from Boris Godunov. He had a somewhat darker bass and he sang this song with the vigor it demanded. Mr. Meinert also performed a charming duet from Pergolesi’s rarely heard comic intermezzo La Serva Padrona, with Olga Lisovskaya, director of the U.S. branch of Talents of the World. They both projected their characters well as well as highlighting the comedy inherent in the piece. Olga’s coloratura and lovely singing voice combined well with Mr. Meinert’s deep bass voice. The pianist Alexandra Naumenko received great applause for her extraordinary accompaniment. 

Soprano Ruslana Koval, who enthralled all who heard her big beautiful voice on Friday, gave another great performance of Mozart’s "Queen of the Night" aria.  She fearlessly and precisely sang all of the high notes in this difficult aria. There was great clarity to her diction and she brought out all of the drama and anger in the aria.

Arsen Soghomonya performed a wonderful "Granada" with his great dramatic tenor voice.

To wind down the end of the first part of the concert, we were treated to some wonderful operetta excerpts and songs.

Tamar Iveri has a big beautiful voice and she can do anything she wants with it.  She sang the popular Neapolitan song “ A Vucchella” by Paolo Tosti with great warmth and love. Her phrasing is always beautiful and, when called for, she can diminish her voice expressively.  The wonderful accompanist Victoria Ulanovskaya was there with her all the way.

Tenor Raul Melo gave a wonderful, funny, performance of the Ballad of the grotesque dwarf Kleinzach, from Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. He has a big dark tenor voice and caught both the comedy and sadness of the character and was very entertaining. 

Three tenors…Raul Melo, Wooyoung Yoon, and Arsen Soghomonyan,whose big dramatic tenor voice blended well with the other tenor voices, sang the Neapolitan song“O Sole Mio" à la Three Tenors, each one taking their turn and revealing the differences in their tenor voices.  Later in the evening they sang another Neapolitan song together, "Torno a Sorento".

Adele’s "Audition aria" from Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus was sung by the lovely soprano, Olga Lisovskaya.  She did a wonderful job of overacting, as was called for. Bass Zachary James and mezzo-soprano Megan Moore also added to the humor of the scene.

The second part of the program consisted of more ensembles and also included many beloved Christmas Carols. It started off with beautiful delicate singing by Tamar Iveri of the song "Autumn Flowers" by Kvernadze. She used many different colors in her voice…The pianist Victoria Ulanovskaya followed her beautifully.

Anna Kolkkhida entered the stage to sing "Silent Night". She began singing very softly with her beautiful soprano voice; then Shaina Martinez, followed by mezzo-soprano Megan Moore sang some verses.  The ending was sung in beautiful harmony with an angelic sound.

Adam's "O Holy Night" was sung as a quartet with Megan Moore leading on stage followed by Raul Melo, Wooyoung Yoon and Shaina Martinez all to good effect.

Baritone David Gvinianidze and soprano Ruslana Koval’s voices blended beautifully together as they sang and danced the waltz from The Merry Widow.

There was more solo singing in this half of the program. Mezzo-soprano Natasha Novitskaia, came out with a red dress and red flower…she gave a very sexy performance of Carmen’s aria “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle.”  Her mezzo voice easily dipped down to the lower register and up to the higher notes in her range.  At the end, she threw a red flower into the audience. 

Soprano Ludmila Fesenko sang a wonderful Ukrainian song “Dniprovsky Vals" by I. Shamo. Her lovely lyric voice reached up to the heights above high C.  She has lots of personality and acted as well as she sang.  She brought down the house. She was immediately followed by the mezzo-soprano Jenni Bank, who gave an equally great performance of “I am easily assimilated” from Leonard Bernstein’s  Candide.  She was delightful and funny in the role, singing with a comic made-up foreign accent.  She and the pianist, Alexandra Naumenko had a good time together.  Tamar Iveri sped through Rossini’s tarantella, "La danza,", and sang with great style. Pianist Alexandra Naumenko followed her perfectly.

 All the singers joined in a toast, “Libiamo”,  from the first act of La Traviata. Raul Melo, Ruslana Koval and David Gvinianidze sang and performed well in this scene.  The other singers surrounded them and sang the chorus. All the singers joined in (with Ruslana Koval’s voice soaring above everyone else's) toasting champagne and wishing us a Merry Christmas. Several couples danced as they had at the beginning of this wonderful evening.

Congratulations not only to the singers, but also to both pianists Alexandra Naumenko and Victoria Ulanovskaya. They provided great support and encouragement to all of the singers.  Congratulations also to David Gvinianidze and Olga Lisovskaya for putting together such a delightful evening, and for all the added touches to the production.  I certainly look forward to the return of the Talents of the World at Carnegie Hall next year.

(c) meche kroop

  

FESTIVAL OR FEAST

John Irvin, Raul Melo, WooYoung Yoon, Tianchi Zhang, Omar Najmi, Victoria Ulanovskaya, Alexandra Naumenko, Olga Lisovskaya, and David Gvinianidze

We are about to celebrate a Southern Italian custom on Christmas Eve--the Feast of Seven Fishes--at the home of some dear friends.  We are not sure whether the idea is to have seven different courses of fish or to eat seven different species of fish. In actuality, in prior years we enjoyed un'abbondanza beyond seven of everything.

Such was the case last night with un'abbondanza of artistry from five terrific tenors and two prodigious pianists, augmented by the talents of baritone David Gvinianidze, Founder of Talents of the World, and Director of same, soprano Olga Lisovskaya. The evening celebrated the 135th anniversary of Enrico Caruso.

Whilst enjoying entertainment, we are also learning, always learning, always forming new opinions.  Our take home from last night is that all singers should become aware of their own strengths and play to them. There is nothing wrong with pushing oneself in new directions--in a voice lesson or in a coaching.  But when one steps onstage, it is best to confine oneself to the type of material that suits one's unique gifts.

Two young tenors did just that last night.  WooYoung Joon has been reviewed by us many times; his strength lies in his stage presence.  He is what is called "a stage animal" and it is no wonder that he consistently wins Audience Favorite awards. (He also won the Grand Prix of this festival's competition). He clearly has a character in mind before he comes onstage and his connection with the character results in an instant and profound connection with the audience.

His Tonio from Donizetti's Fille du Regiment begins with "Ah, mes amis" and we instantly felt he was addressing us in the audience as his friends. This ability to communicate supersedes technique! Of course, we also love his healthy young instrument with its ringing tone.

Another impressive artist, new to us and one of the prize winners, is Tianchi Zhang who performed "Salut! Demeure chaste et pure" from Gounod's Faust. He too understood his character and delivered the aria in fine French with ardent intent and some beautifully floated high notes. We particularly admired his pianissimo, and the apparent ease of sound production.

Yet another prize winner, Omar Najmi, performed "Questa o quello" from Verdi's Rigoletto and and an aria unfamiliar to us--"La Speranza piú soave" from Rossini's Semiramide. In neither case did we feel that the aria suited his voice. There was something going on with the texture of his instrument that we couldn't quite put our finger on and occasional problems with intonation. In any case, his is not a voice suited to bel canto at this point in time; we found the fioritura muddy. We need to hear Mr. Najmi again, singing something different.

John Irvin sounded marvelous as Lensky in "Kuda, kuda vy udalilis" from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, beautifully limning the character of the anguished young poet searching his soul on the brink of an unnecessary death.  The pianissimo moments particularly drew us in. We liked him much more than in Romeo's aria "Ah! Lève-toi soleil" from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. The pianissimo passages were fine but he tends to push during the fortissimo passages.  High does not need to be loud!

Even famous tenors have better affinities for different types of music. Metropolitan Opera star Raul Melo can sing Neapolitan songs with all the requisite garlic and he did just that last night; "Core 'ngrato" was sung with affecting heartbreak. The same intensity worked magnificently in "Vesti la giubba" from Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in which he successfully convinced us of Canio's anguish. 

Mr. Melo's strong middle register lent gravity to "Ma se m'èforza perderti...Si, riverderti, Amelia" from Verdi's Un ballo in maschera; the aria fit his voice perfectly.  Not so "Una furtiva lagrima" from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. Mr. Melo is not suited to Nemorino, not vocally and not dramatically.

Although the program was dedicated to Enrico Caruso, there seemed to be a heavy emphasis on the memory of The Three Tenors concerts which were a huge success and brought many new audience members to opera.  For our taste, there was too much group singing and we are going to tell you why.

Friday night, all the sopranos were equally gifted and equivalently versatile. But last night, the tenors were differentially gifted and not equivalently versatile, so having several of them singing various verses of the same aria served to highlight the tenor whose voice and demeanor best suited the aria, at the expense of the others. A case in point was "La donna è mobile", shared by Mr. Yoon who was flexible in the fioritura, Mr. Zhang who sounded fine, and Mr. Najmi who fell off pitch.

In "Nessun dorma" from Puccini's Turandot, Mr. Melo sounded fine, Mr. Yoon just about made the challenges of the low notes, and Mr. Irvin only succeeded in the midrange.

Still, we were happy to hear so many Neapolitan favorites at the end of the program, although it was disconcerting to see Mr. Irvin alone "on the book".  The evening ended with everyone sharing Denza's "Funiculi, funiculà", an audience favorite.

The evening would not have been complete without Mr. Gvinianidze's splendid baritone filling out Vincenzo DiChiara's "La Spagnola".  What a treat!

Pianistic artistry was shared by the lovely Alexandra Naumenko and Olga Ulanovskaya, who treated us to a piano medley of Italian melodies.

Tomorrow's Christmas Ball will bring in many voices and many types of music; it will be held in Zankel Hall at 7:00 PM.  Do not miss!

(c) meche kroop