NDR Radiophilharmonie (live streaming), 03/12/2020

Royal Affairs - Music by Rossini, Gounod, Delibes, Donizetti, Tchaikovsky, Hadjiev, Verdi, Bellini

Diana Damrau, soprano

Nicolas Testé, bass

NDR Radiophilharmonie

Ivan Repušić

I was saying just yesterday that it was hard to know when something live would be coming up; here's a case in point.  I found out about this concert an hour before it was due to start, but it was certainly well worth the scramble to make sure I could watch it! 

Diana Damrau recently released an album entitled "Tudor Queens" which, as the name clearly indicates, is all about the three Donizetti operas on that subject.  Seeing the title of the concert, I presumed that it was intended, more or less, to promote that album, and she did indeed perform two numbers from the relevant operas.  However, this was a much more varied programme, with a linking theme of Kings and Queens in opera, and the overall selection of pieces was a thoroughly enjoyable mix of the familiar and unfamiliar, with the orchestra being given plenty of chance to shine while Damrau, in true diva style, changed her dress for every number.

The evening began with two items from Rossini's Semiramide, the Overture, and "Bel raggio lusinghier".  My initial reaction was to grimace.  The venue - if I understood the presenter correctly, they were in the Large Broadcast Hall in the NDR premises in Hanover - has quite a reverberant acoustic, and is perhaps one of those spaces where a physical audience is necessary to soak up some of that excess reverb.  At any rate, I found the sound more than a little swimmy, and it took me a while to get used to it.  Fortunately, the voices did not seem to suffer too much, but neither the overture nor the aria quite hit the mark, either in terms of style or feeling.

This was the first of a curious state of affairs with the orchestra.  The playing throughout, technically, was very good, the kind of standard one expects from the German orchestras.  However, there were unquestionably some pieces that 'fit' them better than others, and it wasn't as simple as a matter of musical style.  After the Rossini, I was expecting to find the same slightly bland response to the rest of the belcanto repertory played tonight, yet that was not the case.  Similarly, when the Gounod was immediately more vivid, I expected the later 19th Century repertory to be generally better, and that was not the case either.  It remained perplexing right to the end, and I can only think that Ivan Repušić is a conductor of pronounced likes and dislikes that he communicated to the orchestra.  At any rate, to accompany Nicolas Testé in Solomon's Act 4 aria from Gounod's La reine de Saba, the tone was warmer, the whole mood more responsive to Testé's rich timbre, and that was sustained in the "Gaillard" from Delibes's incidental music to Hugo's play Le roi s'amuse (on which Verdi's Rigoletto is based).

This interplay of vocal and orchestral numbers was, as already mentioned, probably programmed to allow Damrau time to change between her numbers, but it was nice to give the orchestra that chance to play alone - and this is not, primarily, an opera orchestra - and it gave a nice diversity to the evening.  When Damrau returned it was to sing Anna's opening aria and cabaletta from Anna Bolena, and I have to admit this sort of went in one ear and out the other, which tends to be my response to that particular opera as a whole.  Damrau is in very fine voice at the moment, the timbre clear and pure, the vocalises effortless, but this particular number didn't touch me very much.  

There was a short pause, during which Damrau and Repušić were interviewed, then the second half began in very different territory, with two extracts from Eugene Onegin, the Act 3 Polonaise, and Prince Gremin's aria.  Here too, I found the orchestra's response was lacking, the Polonaise did not have that proud glitter to it, and the orchestra seemed to fade into the background during the aria.  Testé is a fine singer, and articulates very cleanly, but I'd have liked the opinion of a Russian speaker on his accent, because it sounded a little stilted to me, and the aria did not flow quite as it should.  

Next, however, followed a real rarity, Maria's Prayer from Maria Desislava by Parashkev Hadjiev.  Hadjiev was a 20th Century Bulgarian composer, very well-known inside his own country, I believe, but hardly at all outside, whose output appears to have been mostly in opera, operetta and film music.  Maria Desislava was written in 1978, but you really wouldn't know it from the music, which is in a thoroughly Late Romantic idiom with Orthodox undertones, appropriate considering it's a prayer for the salvation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman invaders.  It's a rather lovely piece, very nicely delivered by Damrau, and beautifully accompanied.  

As a particularly tart palate cleanser, the orchestra then played part of the ballet music from Verdi's Macbeth, and this was excellent, with snarling trombones and mocking strings, and it cleared the air for a magnificent rendering of the Maria/Talbot duet from Act 2 of Maria Stuarda.  Damrau and Testé were performing this in September in Zurich, and here as there, this scene was beautifully delivered, with great sympathy and tenderness, a real complicity between the two, further enhanced by the fact that, as husband and wife, they do not have to maintain any distance between them.

Finally came two extracts from Bellini's Norma, the Overture, and "Casta Diva", unusually with its cabaletta as well.  The Overture was excellent, Repušić and the orchestra really enjoying its drama and its contrasts.  On the whole, "Casta Diva" was very good, but I don't believe Damrau actually has Norma in her repertory, or any Bellini at all, come to that, and the voice is a little too light for the part, as became evident right at the end of the cabaletta when she was drowned out by the orchestra.  There were also one or two fluctuations in pitch, something that's always an issue with Bellini.  Nevertheless, it was a fine showing, and a good ending to what was, faults and all, a most enjoyable concert.

[Next : 9th December]