52nd Toulouse International Singing Competition - Final, 07/09/2019
Orchestre National du Capitole
Pierre Dumoussaud
I had been expecting the 52nd edition of this competition to take place last year, but they decided to skip a year, and in the interim, have given the proceedings a bit of a face-lift. There's no more art-song element, candidates have to present a selection of operatic arias only, to be sung in the original language and by memory at all times, and with a choice of at least two living languages. There were ten finalists, from ten different countries (a major improvement on the last competition, where three-quarters of the finalists were South Korean), five women and five men. None of the singers' ages were given, save one, but most of them are already well started on their careers, many engaged in German theatres, and I would hazard a guess that the average age of the group was around 31. [E.T.A. : I have since found the ages of the prize-winners from a different source, and added them to the text] They sang two arias each, the first aria selected by the jury, the second chosen by themselves.
Each performer and the work selected was introduced by an MC - on this occasion, former government minister Roselyne Bachelot - and, for the first time in my experience, the audience was allowed to applaud each performance individually. As before, however, there were six jury prizes, three for the ladies, three for the gentlemen, and an audience prize. (My accounts of the last three competitions can be read here, here, and here.) Each singer sang their first aria, there was a 20-minute interval, they appeared in the same order to sing their second aria, then there was a 30-minute interval before prize-giving, which was refreshingly speedy - no pontificating from local notables! It was still a longer evening than I recall previous finals being; we went in at 20:00, and came out at 23:30.
Blaise Malaba (30, bass, Democratic Republic of Congo)
Verdi : I masnadieri - Un ignoto tre lune or saranno
Bellini : La sonnambula - Vi ravviso... Tu non sai
I first came across Blaise Malaba in Cardiff in 2015, when he was 26 and, at that point, almost wholly taught from within the Congo. Since then, according to tonight's introduction, he has pursued further education in the Ukraine, and at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. Both tonight's arias were in Italian, which was noticeably more fluent than in 2015, all to the better, but although the voice is still attractive, there was some uncertain pitching at the start of both pieces which was a trifle off-putting. The Verdi didn't do much for me, though it's a relatively unfamiliar piece to me to begin with, but I thought Malaba dealt better with Count Rodolfo's lyrical nostalgia in the Bellini. Still one to watch, though he needs to address the instabilities when commencing his arias.
Josy Santos (30, mezzo-soprano, Brazil)
Mozart : La clemenza di Tito - Parto, parto
Bizet : Carmen - Les tringles des sistres tintaient
An excellent all-rounder, from the sounds of it, with a large, clear sound, a broad range, and good level of agility. Her Sesto perhaps needed a Vitellia to focus the emotion of the aria, it was a little scattered, but the interplay with the wonderful clarinet obbligato part was well done, and the triplets in the final section neatly delivered. When I saw Carmen on the programme, I was inclined to groan a bit, but Santos surprised, by picking the gypsy dance from the start of Act 2, as opposed to the more famous Habanera or Seguidilla, and she made the most of it, with the vivid collusion of the orchestra. Her French needs work, it's a bit opaque, but the magnetism of the character was projected in abundance, as much physically as vocally. By the end of my evening, Santos was my unequivocal choice for 1st place, based on what I'd heard. There was, finally, no 1st Prize attribution for the ladies, to pretty much everyone's disappointment, but the company director reminded us, quite rightly, that the jury had had a week's worth of singing from which to assess the competitors, whereas we were merely going by this one concert. Santos did, at least, win the Second Prize.
Jacob Scharfman (baritone, USA)
Mozart : Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo, K. 584
Wagner : Tannhäuser - O du mein holder Abendstern
Guglielmo's alternative aria seems to be popular in competition, and Scharfman was enjoying himself with it, as Guglielmo attempts to sell the charms of the "Albanians" to the forlorn sisters. There was just enough physical tomfoolery to be amusing, along with excellent diction, which gave highlight to the Mozart. With the far more staid circumstances of Wolfram's romance from Tannhäuser, the somewhat thin quality of Scharman's baritone became troublesome, in an aria where you want to hear a smooth, honeyed tone of great beauty. The diction was still exemplary, however.
Andrés Sulbarán (28, tenor, Venezuela)
Tchaikovsky : Eugene Onegin - Kuda, kuda
Gounod : Roméo et Juliette - Ah, lève-toi, soleil!
Another instance where I found the tone a little thin, in the Tchaikovsky, and the delivery lacked fluidity, although the voice is attractive, as was rather better demonstrated in the Gounod. Lensky failed to convince me, but Roméo was a much better proposition, although a great deal of the work was done by some particularly beautiful playing from the orchestra, which played its part with a tenderness that could only stand as an ideal example for the singer to emulate. Based on tonight's performances, I heard a very respectable tenor voice that, however, was a little lacking in individuality. The jury clearly had other experiences on which to base an opinion, and ended up awarding Sulbarán First Prize.
Olga Syniakova (mezzo-soprano, Ukraine)
Bellini : I Capuleti e i Montecchi - Ascolta: Se Romeo... La tremenda ultrice spada
Cilea : Adriana Lecouvreur - Acerba volutta
A slightly darker mezzo than Santos, but still with enough agility for the fireworks of Romeo's entrance aria and cabaletta, in Bellini's version of the Romeo-and-Juliet story. However, the orchestra drowned Syniakova at moments in the Cilea, and there really wasn't enough bite and fire there. With the Cilea, you want to feel you're watching a tigress prowling in the dark, fierce and determined, and where Syniakova had no trouble with Romeo's youthful ardour, the Princesse de Bouillon's very adult, menacing purposefulness was too much for her.
Valentin Thill (25, tenor, France)
Delibes : Lakmé - Prendre le dessin d'un bijou
Tchaikovsky : Eugene Onegin - Kuda, kuda
To be a French tenor called Thill must be a bit of a burden, unless the present generation is completely ignorant of the past, for Georges Thill was one of the great voices of the last century. It was a heavier voice than Valentin Thill's however, who charmed with Gérald's aria from Lakmé, in which he conjures up a lovely image of the as yet unseen Lakmé from a simple perusal of her jewellery. Thill's diction is also excellent, both in French and in Russian, but there was one slight problem with his Delibes, in that when he wanted to sing the highest notes of the aria very quietly, the voice tended to be not fully supported. The first time, I thought it was just an accident, a breath taken - or not taken - in the wrong place. Unfortunately, it happened several times, and it jarred. His Tchaikovsky, on the other hand, had everything I felt Sulbarán's had lacked, clear Russian, fluidity and momentum. I would have placed this unhesitatingly before Sulbarán's performance; the jury gave Thill Second Prize.
Daeho Kim (31, bass-baritone, South Korea)
Borodin : Prince Igor - Ne sna, ne otdyha
Rossini : La Cenerentola - Miei rampolli femminini
Bachelot did Kim no favours by reminding us, in her introduction, that the Borodin aria had been a favourite of Dmitri Hvorostovsky's, who had also been a Toulouse Competition winner, the year before his Cardiff victory. That was an impossible pair of shoes to fill, for how could we not recall the flawless legato of Hvorostovsky's singing, with which Kim could not hope to compare? He gave an earnest, honest performance of the Borodin, but that was as far as it went. He changed register completely, however, with Don Magnifico's entrance aria from La Cenerentola, and despite some slight difficulties with the Italian (which afflict a great many non-native speakers), his comic timing and interpretation were well judged and deftly delivered, to very enjoyable effect. Kim won Third Prize.
Anne Dowsley (31, mezzo-soprano, Australia)
Mozart : Idomeneo - Non ho colpa
Massenet : Werther - Ces lettres!
I will confess to not enjoying Idomeneo much at the best of times, and Dowsley did nothing much to convince me otherwise. Like Santos in her Mozart, I wasn't quite convinced of the discourse, of the pleading Idamante is addressing to Ilia in this aria. Her French put me off the Letter Aria from Werther - in a competition where the standard of diction was remarkably high all round, it was unfortunate to be presented with clogged pronunciation. Much of the success of this number rested, I felt, once again with the orchestra, which has, of course, just recently finished a main-stage run of the complete opera, and therefore had the score in every possible detail at its collective fingertips, and it showed. The voice has a good range and quality of timbre, however, and Dowsley was awarded Joint Third Prize.
Lotte Vertsaen (23, mezzo-soprano, Belgium)
Tchaikovsky : Eugene Onegin - Akh, Tanya, Tanya!
Johann Strauss II : Die Fledermaus - Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein
The youngest competitor of the evening, at 23, Vertsaen has a warm, slightly fruity mezzo, still a little underweighted, I think, although that should develop quite quickly. She began with a nice choice, Olga's only aria, very appropriate for a young woman, and convincingly delivered, although a touch more radiance at the climax of the number would have been appreciated. She followed it up with a swaggering Prince Orlofsky, welcoming his guests to his masked ball with charming nonchalance. I have to say that, if Orlofsky is to be sung by a woman, I prefer a much darker, contralto timbre for the role, but Vertsaen's performance was amusing and appealing. She was the other recipient of the Joint Third Prize, and I imagine she'll be reappearing in a few years' time at some of the bigger singing competitions.
Marie Lys (soprano, Switzerland)
Donizetti : La fille du régiment - C'en est donc fait... Salut à la France
Bernstein : Candide - Glitter and be gay
Marie Lys enjoyed the luck of the draw in appearing last, for she was not only the only soprano of the evening, but a coloratura soprano to boot, which meant she closed both halves of the concert with show-stoppers that proved very popular with the audience. For the big Act 2 aria and cabaletta from the Donizetti, the French wasn't always completely comprehensible (which seemed a little odd since, I presume from Lys's name, she's a francophone Swiss), but there was nothing fudged about the ornamentation or the high notes. As for the Bernstein, she was having a ball with it, much to her and our amusement. There was one top note I wasn't completely convinced about, but the rest were sharp, clear and scarily high, a real jolt of adrenaline to the system. Although Lys did not officially place, she was awarded the Audience Prize, and she certainly sent the audience out into the evening on a high note - pun absolutely intended!
[Next : 11th October]
Pierre Dumoussaud
I had been expecting the 52nd edition of this competition to take place last year, but they decided to skip a year, and in the interim, have given the proceedings a bit of a face-lift. There's no more art-song element, candidates have to present a selection of operatic arias only, to be sung in the original language and by memory at all times, and with a choice of at least two living languages. There were ten finalists, from ten different countries (a major improvement on the last competition, where three-quarters of the finalists were South Korean), five women and five men. None of the singers' ages were given, save one, but most of them are already well started on their careers, many engaged in German theatres, and I would hazard a guess that the average age of the group was around 31. [E.T.A. : I have since found the ages of the prize-winners from a different source, and added them to the text] They sang two arias each, the first aria selected by the jury, the second chosen by themselves.
Each performer and the work selected was introduced by an MC - on this occasion, former government minister Roselyne Bachelot - and, for the first time in my experience, the audience was allowed to applaud each performance individually. As before, however, there were six jury prizes, three for the ladies, three for the gentlemen, and an audience prize. (My accounts of the last three competitions can be read here, here, and here.) Each singer sang their first aria, there was a 20-minute interval, they appeared in the same order to sing their second aria, then there was a 30-minute interval before prize-giving, which was refreshingly speedy - no pontificating from local notables! It was still a longer evening than I recall previous finals being; we went in at 20:00, and came out at 23:30.
Blaise Malaba (30, bass, Democratic Republic of Congo)
Verdi : I masnadieri - Un ignoto tre lune or saranno
Bellini : La sonnambula - Vi ravviso... Tu non sai
I first came across Blaise Malaba in Cardiff in 2015, when he was 26 and, at that point, almost wholly taught from within the Congo. Since then, according to tonight's introduction, he has pursued further education in the Ukraine, and at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. Both tonight's arias were in Italian, which was noticeably more fluent than in 2015, all to the better, but although the voice is still attractive, there was some uncertain pitching at the start of both pieces which was a trifle off-putting. The Verdi didn't do much for me, though it's a relatively unfamiliar piece to me to begin with, but I thought Malaba dealt better with Count Rodolfo's lyrical nostalgia in the Bellini. Still one to watch, though he needs to address the instabilities when commencing his arias.
Josy Santos (30, mezzo-soprano, Brazil)
Mozart : La clemenza di Tito - Parto, parto
Bizet : Carmen - Les tringles des sistres tintaient
An excellent all-rounder, from the sounds of it, with a large, clear sound, a broad range, and good level of agility. Her Sesto perhaps needed a Vitellia to focus the emotion of the aria, it was a little scattered, but the interplay with the wonderful clarinet obbligato part was well done, and the triplets in the final section neatly delivered. When I saw Carmen on the programme, I was inclined to groan a bit, but Santos surprised, by picking the gypsy dance from the start of Act 2, as opposed to the more famous Habanera or Seguidilla, and she made the most of it, with the vivid collusion of the orchestra. Her French needs work, it's a bit opaque, but the magnetism of the character was projected in abundance, as much physically as vocally. By the end of my evening, Santos was my unequivocal choice for 1st place, based on what I'd heard. There was, finally, no 1st Prize attribution for the ladies, to pretty much everyone's disappointment, but the company director reminded us, quite rightly, that the jury had had a week's worth of singing from which to assess the competitors, whereas we were merely going by this one concert. Santos did, at least, win the Second Prize.
Jacob Scharfman (baritone, USA)
Mozart : Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo, K. 584
Wagner : Tannhäuser - O du mein holder Abendstern
Guglielmo's alternative aria seems to be popular in competition, and Scharfman was enjoying himself with it, as Guglielmo attempts to sell the charms of the "Albanians" to the forlorn sisters. There was just enough physical tomfoolery to be amusing, along with excellent diction, which gave highlight to the Mozart. With the far more staid circumstances of Wolfram's romance from Tannhäuser, the somewhat thin quality of Scharman's baritone became troublesome, in an aria where you want to hear a smooth, honeyed tone of great beauty. The diction was still exemplary, however.
Andrés Sulbarán (28, tenor, Venezuela)
Tchaikovsky : Eugene Onegin - Kuda, kuda
Gounod : Roméo et Juliette - Ah, lève-toi, soleil!
Another instance where I found the tone a little thin, in the Tchaikovsky, and the delivery lacked fluidity, although the voice is attractive, as was rather better demonstrated in the Gounod. Lensky failed to convince me, but Roméo was a much better proposition, although a great deal of the work was done by some particularly beautiful playing from the orchestra, which played its part with a tenderness that could only stand as an ideal example for the singer to emulate. Based on tonight's performances, I heard a very respectable tenor voice that, however, was a little lacking in individuality. The jury clearly had other experiences on which to base an opinion, and ended up awarding Sulbarán First Prize.
Olga Syniakova (mezzo-soprano, Ukraine)
Bellini : I Capuleti e i Montecchi - Ascolta: Se Romeo... La tremenda ultrice spada
Cilea : Adriana Lecouvreur - Acerba volutta
A slightly darker mezzo than Santos, but still with enough agility for the fireworks of Romeo's entrance aria and cabaletta, in Bellini's version of the Romeo-and-Juliet story. However, the orchestra drowned Syniakova at moments in the Cilea, and there really wasn't enough bite and fire there. With the Cilea, you want to feel you're watching a tigress prowling in the dark, fierce and determined, and where Syniakova had no trouble with Romeo's youthful ardour, the Princesse de Bouillon's very adult, menacing purposefulness was too much for her.
Valentin Thill (25, tenor, France)
Delibes : Lakmé - Prendre le dessin d'un bijou
Tchaikovsky : Eugene Onegin - Kuda, kuda
To be a French tenor called Thill must be a bit of a burden, unless the present generation is completely ignorant of the past, for Georges Thill was one of the great voices of the last century. It was a heavier voice than Valentin Thill's however, who charmed with Gérald's aria from Lakmé, in which he conjures up a lovely image of the as yet unseen Lakmé from a simple perusal of her jewellery. Thill's diction is also excellent, both in French and in Russian, but there was one slight problem with his Delibes, in that when he wanted to sing the highest notes of the aria very quietly, the voice tended to be not fully supported. The first time, I thought it was just an accident, a breath taken - or not taken - in the wrong place. Unfortunately, it happened several times, and it jarred. His Tchaikovsky, on the other hand, had everything I felt Sulbarán's had lacked, clear Russian, fluidity and momentum. I would have placed this unhesitatingly before Sulbarán's performance; the jury gave Thill Second Prize.
Daeho Kim (31, bass-baritone, South Korea)
Borodin : Prince Igor - Ne sna, ne otdyha
Rossini : La Cenerentola - Miei rampolli femminini
Bachelot did Kim no favours by reminding us, in her introduction, that the Borodin aria had been a favourite of Dmitri Hvorostovsky's, who had also been a Toulouse Competition winner, the year before his Cardiff victory. That was an impossible pair of shoes to fill, for how could we not recall the flawless legato of Hvorostovsky's singing, with which Kim could not hope to compare? He gave an earnest, honest performance of the Borodin, but that was as far as it went. He changed register completely, however, with Don Magnifico's entrance aria from La Cenerentola, and despite some slight difficulties with the Italian (which afflict a great many non-native speakers), his comic timing and interpretation were well judged and deftly delivered, to very enjoyable effect. Kim won Third Prize.
Anne Dowsley (31, mezzo-soprano, Australia)
Mozart : Idomeneo - Non ho colpa
Massenet : Werther - Ces lettres!
I will confess to not enjoying Idomeneo much at the best of times, and Dowsley did nothing much to convince me otherwise. Like Santos in her Mozart, I wasn't quite convinced of the discourse, of the pleading Idamante is addressing to Ilia in this aria. Her French put me off the Letter Aria from Werther - in a competition where the standard of diction was remarkably high all round, it was unfortunate to be presented with clogged pronunciation. Much of the success of this number rested, I felt, once again with the orchestra, which has, of course, just recently finished a main-stage run of the complete opera, and therefore had the score in every possible detail at its collective fingertips, and it showed. The voice has a good range and quality of timbre, however, and Dowsley was awarded Joint Third Prize.
Lotte Vertsaen (23, mezzo-soprano, Belgium)
Tchaikovsky : Eugene Onegin - Akh, Tanya, Tanya!
Johann Strauss II : Die Fledermaus - Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein
The youngest competitor of the evening, at 23, Vertsaen has a warm, slightly fruity mezzo, still a little underweighted, I think, although that should develop quite quickly. She began with a nice choice, Olga's only aria, very appropriate for a young woman, and convincingly delivered, although a touch more radiance at the climax of the number would have been appreciated. She followed it up with a swaggering Prince Orlofsky, welcoming his guests to his masked ball with charming nonchalance. I have to say that, if Orlofsky is to be sung by a woman, I prefer a much darker, contralto timbre for the role, but Vertsaen's performance was amusing and appealing. She was the other recipient of the Joint Third Prize, and I imagine she'll be reappearing in a few years' time at some of the bigger singing competitions.
Marie Lys (soprano, Switzerland)
Donizetti : La fille du régiment - C'en est donc fait... Salut à la France
Bernstein : Candide - Glitter and be gay
Marie Lys enjoyed the luck of the draw in appearing last, for she was not only the only soprano of the evening, but a coloratura soprano to boot, which meant she closed both halves of the concert with show-stoppers that proved very popular with the audience. For the big Act 2 aria and cabaletta from the Donizetti, the French wasn't always completely comprehensible (which seemed a little odd since, I presume from Lys's name, she's a francophone Swiss), but there was nothing fudged about the ornamentation or the high notes. As for the Bernstein, she was having a ball with it, much to her and our amusement. There was one top note I wasn't completely convinced about, but the rest were sharp, clear and scarily high, a real jolt of adrenaline to the system. Although Lys did not officially place, she was awarded the Audience Prize, and she certainly sent the audience out into the evening on a high note - pun absolutely intended!
[Next : 11th October]