North Terrace

Main Prize - Grand Final BBC National Orchestra of Wales Michael Christie Ryan Bancroft

Main Prize - Concert 4 BBC National Orchestra of Wales Ryan Bancroft Vasyl Solodkyy, tenor  (32, Ukraine) Donizetti : "Una furtiva lagrima" ( L'elisir d'amore ) Verdi : "Tutto parea sorridere... Si, di Corsari il fulmine" ( Il corsaro ) Dvorák : "Vidino divná presladká" ( Rusalka ) If any of this competition's tenors were going to go tenorissimo  (see the entry for Concert 1), based on his Song Prize round, I had expected it to be Solodkyy.  However, apart from "Una furtiva lagrima", his other choices were not nearly as standard as might have been expected.  His darker timbre was quite rewarding in the Donizetti, but there were a couple of slight technical hitches that marred a smooth delivery, and they recurred in the Verdi aria and cabaletta.  It was, however, nice to hear his voice really switch gear for the Verdi, taking on a firmer, meatier quality.  The Rusalka  extract, from the end of Act 1, was also a nice choice, except that...

Main Prize - Concert 2 BBC National Orchestra of Wales Ryan Bancroft Meigui Zhang, soprano  (29, China) Donizetti : "Quel guardo il cavaliere" ( Don Pasquale ) Bizet : "Me voilà seule... Comme autrefois" ( Les pêcheurs de perles ) Lehár : "Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiß" ( Giuditta ) It's hard to know what to say about a programme and performance like this.  The singer has an attractive voice, it's generally well deployed, she's visually appealing, but there's not a lot more to it than that.  That's surely enough, you say, and yes, in normal life, and outside the major houses, yes, it is.  But this is an international and prestigious competition, and here, it's not enough.  It's a little like my problem with Sungho Kim's programme last night, we've heard it all done a thousand times before, and Zhang brought nothing new to it.  As usual with me, it's the French repertoire that ruffled my feathers the most, I felt sh...