The Hallé’s Pop concerts master-minded and
conducted by Stephen Bell are well established, and none more so than the
Valentine’s Day special: last night was an ‘opera lovers’ programme, with an
attractive selection of excerpts – some really well known, some a little off
the beaten track – plus Mendelssohn’s Wedding March and ‘Tonight’ from West
Side Story thrown in for good measure.
What gave the concert distinction was the
quality of the tenor and soprano soloists. Noah Stewart has endeared himself to
audiences here in Manchester since Opera North picked him as an outstanding
Pinkerton for their Madama Butterfly
a few years ago, and he’s appeared on big stages in London, too, as well as BBC’s
Songs of Praise.
His refined, pitch-perfect voice is a real
pleasure to hear, and he’s got stage presence and acting ability, too. He was
well complemented by Sarah Fox, a Yorkshire girl and Kathleen Ferrier Award
winner who can impress in many styles, including the most technically
demanding, and in both cases they give a concert audience a taste of what real
opera singers sound like – rather than the ersatz ‘opera singers’ who always
need a microphone to make themselves heard.
Stephen Bell’s way with the orchestra is
laid back, to say the least, and they jogged their way through Rossini’s Barber of Seville overture and the
Wedding March, too. The Intermezzo from Cavalleria
Rusticana had a bit more class (the harp bass notes attractively in tune,
which you don’t always get when you’re well into a full theatre performance),
and they let rip with the Grand March from Aida
to open the concert’s second half. Leader Paul Barritt played the Thaïs Méditation solo with sweetness and
affection, too.
Noah Stewart began with Recondita Armonia
from Tosca, by Puccini, sung in fine
style, and ‘Una furtiva lacrima’ from L’Elisir
d’Amore (Donizetti) had a well-projected ending – this guy is the real deal
when it comes to Romantic tenors, and the audience loved his Nessun Dorma.
Sarah Fox’s first solo was ‘Ebben? Ne andro
lontano’ from Catalani’s La Wally,
one of those excerpts that are almost the only part of a once-successful opera
to survive. It showed off her excellent control of a long melodic line, while Marietta’s
Lied from Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt
was a charmer, and the Song to the Moon from Rusalka equaled it.
Together they sailed through duets from
Gounod’s Faust, Mascagni’s L’Amico Fritz and ‘O soave fanciulla’
from La Bohème (delicately ending
with two top Cs, floated from off-stage), and rewarded their hearers’ enthusiastic
acclaim with the Brindisi from La
Traviata.
Real opera lovers go to see operas, rather
than listening to excerpts in a concert hall, but it was a relaxing night for
tune lovers – and we’re all those at heart.
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