BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, 10/06/2023 (1)

Song Prize - Recital 1

1) Johanna Wallroth, soprano (29, Sweden) - Magnus Svensson, piano

Schubert : Die junge Nonne

Ullmann : Claire Vénus

Ives : Memories

Liszt :  Pace non trovo

The Song Prize branch of the Cardiff Singer of the World competition got off to a good start with this bright, clear and poised Swedish soprano, physically a little stiff, but vocally expressive.  Schubert's "Die junge Nonne" made for an imposing start in quite an interesting programme, but the Ullmann was less successful.  The programme - already a hefty book - does not include lyrics, and Wallroth's French was not clear enough to distinguish the text, so the sense of the song was lost.  The Ives, on the other hand, was an unqualified success, breathlessly excited in the first part, and sweetly sentimental, without being mawkish, in the second.  The Petrarch Sonnet that closed her programme exploited the range of the voice, and the very top was just a shade short, but I think could just be a momentary aberration, and not especially significant, and I wouldn't mind hearing her again at all.

2) Vasyl Solokdyy, tenor (32, Ukraine) - Llŷr Williams, piano

Liszt : I' vidi in terra

De Curtis : Tu, ca nun chiagne

Dumytrashko : Chorniyi brovy, kariyi ochi

Lehár : Dein ist mein ganzes Herz

In a very neat bit of programme organisation from the administration, we went straight from the second to the third of Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets.  The difference - apart from the type of voice - was the piano.  You've heard me expatiate frequently enough in these pages about the qualities of Llŷr Williams's playing, and this afternoon was no exception, which made it a little difficult to listen to the singer, especially given that this was clearly a programme by a singer present, I suspect, merely because he felt he had to be.  Otherwise, though, he was pretty much playing to his strengths.  It's an appealing, slightly dark-toned tenor voice, and Solokdyy is not cursed with the usual tenor morphology, being a reasonably tall and reasonably attractive young man.  I expect him to do quite well in the operatic competition.  The De Curtis was one of his more melancholy ones, but still pleasing, the Ukrainian 'folk' song similarly, plus the sympathy factor, of course, but the Lehár didn't sit naturally in his voice and lacked flow.  He went down well with the audience; everyone loves a good tenor, and his sound is frank and outgoing, but he's not a true recitalist.

3) Beth Taylor, mezzo-soprano (29, Scotland) - Hamish Brown, piano

Purcell (arr. Britten) : Lord, what is man?

Honegger : Trois chansons de la petite Sirène

Hahn : Dans la nuit

Schubert : Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren

Howells : King David

Taylor has a dark-timbre mezzo verging on the contralto in the lowest part of the voice.  She began with Britten's arrangement of the 1693 hymn "Lord, what is man" (Z. 192), which begins with an almost Brahmsian solemnity before becoming more joyous, and ending with a remarkable, ornamented sequence of Hallelujah's.  Because of the Britten arrangement, the transition to the sparse, lean world of Honegger's "Little Mermaid" songs wasn't as startling as it might have been, and these were very interesting, though the rapid French of the last, nonsense song proved tricky - she did get the punch line out cleanly, though.  The Hahn was beautiful, exploiting the voluptuous side of her tone, but the Schubert was a little dull.  She finished off with a very fine interpretation of Howells's famous "King David", grave and melancholy.  It's quite a long song, and a difficult one to sustain, and she managed admirably.

4) Nombulelo Yende, soprano (31, South Africa) - Simon Lepper, piano

Strauss : Ruhe, meine Seele

Grieg : Zur Rosenzeit

Greig : En Svane

Strauss : Cäcilie

Strauss : Heimliche Aufforderung

Strauss : Kling!

A somewhat limited programme, but very much designed to show off the opulence of Yende's timbre.  Again, good programming had Taylor's solemn "King David" followed up by "Ruhe, meine Seele", which has a similar grave, reflective atmosphere.  This is a Fleming-style soprano, all rich, creamy lusciousness, but there is much room for improvement on the expressive level.  "Ruhe..." is one of the stillest songs I know, the voice should have an other-worldly quality to it, while "Heimliche Aufforderung" is all ecstatic anticipation, neither of which Yende quite conveyed.  She was at her best in the enigmatic "A Swan", the Grieg setting of Ibsen, and in the brilliance of "Cäcilie", which did have the kind of excitement I was looking for.  

[Next : 10th June - yes, later today]