BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2015
Main Prize Final - 21st June 2015
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Thomas Søndergård (TS)
Martyn Brabbins (MB)
It's been a week of fairly spectacular singing, all told. Highs and lows, certainly, but the overall standard has been very good, and much was anticipated of the final. I had one concern in particular. Every contestant rolls out (or should) their best number(s) for their round, in order to have a chance of winning. Having done that, however, and then progressing to the final, I've seen it happen all too often that they have, to all intents and purposes, shot their bolt, and what they produce in the Final doesn't stand up to their previous performance. As the jury is not supposed to judge on anything other than what they hear in the Final, that tends to inflect on their ultimate judgement, and I think it happened again tonight. That said, this was a very, very enjoyable evening.
Amartuvshin Enkhbat (baritone, 29, Mongolia, TS) : Si può? (I Pagliacci, Leoncavallo), O du mein holder Abendstern (Tannhäuser, Wagner), Eri tu (Un ballo in maschera, Verdi)
If anything is going to hold Amartuvshin Enkhbat back from a major international career, it will be his appearance. There's nothing wrong with it, of course, but he's very much in the characteristic mould of his compatriots, a broad, apparently immobile face, mostly unsmiling, and narrow eyes that are difficult to read. It makes him visually a bit impenetrable, although his voice certainly carries all the emotion his face does not. He is a natural recording artist, where all that matters is what you hear, and I really hope we hear a great deal more of him in the future. Once again, that magnificent, dark baritone filled the hall, rich, resonant, lyrical and persuasive. There were perhaps a couple of higher notes in the first part of the Leoncavallo Prologue where he attacked from underneath rather than from above, but that was soon ironed out. The Wagner was intimate and still, the Verdi noble and melancholy. Outstanding though it all was, however, none of it quite reached the extraordinary heights of his Giordano in his round.
Lauren Michelle (soprano, 31, USA, MB) : Il est doux (Hérodiade, Massenet), Glück das mir verlieb (Die tote Stadt, Korngold), Oh smanie! (Idomeneo, Mozart)
Lauren Michelle was another who never matched the white heat of her Traviata in her round. The Massenet was almost completely miscast, her French was poor, her sound constricted, as if she was afraid to let her voice ring out. Only in the coda did we hear for a moment the real quality of her voice. Some of the Korngold was very lovely, intimate and caressing, but again, it was very reserved. In contrast, the Mozart, where she could really have applied that same burn she used for Violetta, also missed the plot badly. The character is enraged, almost driven mad with it, and we got nothing of that from Michelle, and more self-pity than fury. Very disappointing, and it was clear it would put her out of the reckoning for the Main Prize.
Oleksiy Palchykov (tenor, 29, Ukraine, TS) : O wie ängstlich (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mozart), Una furtiva lagrima (L'elisir d'amore, Donizetti), Ach, so fromm (Martha, Flotow), Dein ist mein ganzes Herz (Das Land des Lächelns, Lehár)
As expected of Palchykov, an intelligently chosen programme, and one that complemented his round programme very nicely. His voice was not the most beautiful tonight, but he plays his roles as well as singing them, and that made him particularly expressive. The one thing that was troubling was that his top seemed just a little constricted, and only in the Lehár did it open out properly. His Nemorino in particular, although his timbre (like Darmanin's earlier in the week) is not really honeyed enough for this music, was surprisingly successful, the character coming through very strongly, and it was nice to hear the Flotow, once hugely popular, now less often heard. The Lehár was chosen as an obvious crowd-pleaser, at which it was successful, but he's no Tauber. Still, the overall package had much to offer.
Nadine Koutcher (soprano, 32, Belarus, MB) : Ach, ich liebte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mozart), Ivan Sergeich, khochesh (The Tsar's Bride, Rimsky-Korsakov), Où va la jeune Indoue (Lakmé, Delibes)
Nadine Koutcher was always going to be a strong contender for the Main Prize, with the other really spectacular voice of the competition. She began with Constanze's first aria, which even in the best of hands tends to become a little squally in its coloratura, and Koutcher was no different. What was immediately apparent, however, was that she had been doing a lot of work on her communication, and this was considerably more expressive than anything I'd heard from her previously, when I'd found her beautiful to listen to, but a bit bland. She followed this up with a really very fine reading of Marfa's Act IV scene and aria from The Tsar's Bride, an eerily tender mad scene, marvellously supported by the orchestra. Finally, another crowd-pleaser, the Bell Song from Lakmé, designed to show off her coloratura in a more flattering light than the Mozart. It wasn't perfect - one or two flickers of intonation problems, and the last note, held too long, became a bit of a shriek - but her French was quite passable, and the rest was, on the whole, impressive.
Jongmin Park (bass, 28, South Korea, TS) : Confutatis maledictis (Messa di Requiem, Verdi), La calunnia (Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Rossini), Là turbini e farnetichi (La Gioconda, Ponchielli)
Jongmin Park was the wild card of the competition, the very first performer to sing, who went on to win the Song Prize on Friday night. The qualities displayed in the Song competition went some way to explain why he had been given the wild card, and one could only hope that he would bring those to the Main Prize Final. Alas, apart from a vivid "La calunnia", in which his voice was less impressive than Ryan Speedo Green's had been, but his interpretation a lot more interesting, we had a reprise of Monday night's standards in both the Verdi and the Ponchielli - good quality voice, decidedly uninspiring presentation. There could be no question but that he was outclassed by at least three of tonight's other competitors.
However much I wanted Enkhbat to win, it had to be acknowledged that the field was still open, and although Enkhbat won the Audience Prize, it was Koutcher who carried off the Main Prize. This was a vintage to remember, however, because there were many young singers worthy of note, and of whom we should be hearing more in the future.
[Next : 7th July]
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