Raymond Gubbay Christmas Festival 2006:
Opera Gala.
The Bridgewater Hall,
Manchester
27.12.2006 (RJF)
For classical music devotees, and particularly opera buffs,
who live north of Watford or west of Reading the name
Raymond Gubbay brings to mind opera spectaculars in the
round in London’s Albert Hall. These events have evolved
into widely admired occasions featuring first class singers
and directors. Opera enthusiasts like myself wish that
the economics would allow such productions to transfer
to the likes of opera starved Manchester, perhaps in the
Manchester Evening News arena. It was in this venue that
the Raymond Gubbay Christmas Festival started on
December 9th with a Classical Spectacular
featuring the Hallé Orchestra, the Leeds Festival Chorus,
Muskets and Canons of the Moscow Militia and solo singers
together with lasers, lights and fireworks; quite a show.
In the Gubbay tradition it was an unashamedly populist
programme including the 1812 overture, Nessun
Dorma and the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves among
the varied items. The populist theme has continued through
the dozen or so concerts given at the Bridgewater Hall.
These have included Carol Concerts, a Boxing Day Prom,
two Gilbert and Sullivan sessions, a New Years Day Gala
as well as the Opera Gala I attended. The Festival is
a feast to suit everyone except the lover of the obscure
who can get their fare via the Arts Council subsidised
Companies who can afford box office disasters and half
empty halls.
The
Bridgewater Hall was full for the Opera Gala, which, like
the opera spectaculars in London,
featured singers who also grace productions by our national
companies. Best of all was tall and elegant Linda Richardson.
Long a principal singer with English National Opera I
heard her Countess in Mozart’s Figaro with Opera
North earlier in the year (review).
She is also scheduled to sing Gilda with them in the coming
summer season. Her voice is now growing out of the lighter
roles and her steady legato, vocal colour and capacity
for characterisation were heard to good effect in Un
Bel Di from Madam Butterfly and particularly
in the less well known Ebben? Ne andro lontano
from Catalani’s Le Wally. Her voice has still
the flexibility for Caro nome and the Flower
Duet from Lakme where she was joined by the
mezzo Clare Shearer who lightened her big voice and tone
very well for the latter piece. She was perhaps less successful
in Softly awakes my heart but impressive in conveying
Azucena’s Stride la vampa from Il Trovatore
where here firm contralto lower notes were heard to good
effect. All the vocal items were sung in the language
of their composition with a detailed paragraph in the
programme explaining a little about the work and the context
of the particular piece.
The
tenor for the evening was Gwyn Hughes Jones who as well
as singing at New York’s Metropolitan Opera also features
with Welsh National Opera. Recently colleague reviewer
Glynn Purslove saw him as Puccini’s Rodolfo with that
company in Cardiff (review).
Anglesey born, a coach load of his supporters travelled
to Manchester
as they had to the Cardiff for the Bohème.
He has a clear lyric tenor voice with a slight metallic
edge and sang La donna e mobile with élan and good
phrasing. He should perhaps be careful with the
weightier demands of Bizet’s Flower Song from
Carmen and particularly Nessun Dorma,
which has become a kind of tenor virility symbol. Much
as Pavarotti has regularly done in concert, although not
on his recording, Gwyn Hughes Jones eschewed the final
high note. He sang the duet Ah Mimi from Bohème
with the baritone for the evening, the Australian Jonathan
Summers who has recently been singing Rigoletto with Opera
North. Jonathan Summers had followed the opening Barber
of Seville overture with a strongly sung but rather
routine Largo al factotum. Thirty or so years ago,
I heard him as a lyric baritone with compatriot Joan Sutherland.
Moving towards the end of his career now, he tends to
give too much voice to his singin,g exposing some dryness
and wear at the top. Nonetheless the audience appreciated
his fully committed singing and showmanship.
Andrew
Greenwood conducted throughout. Well known in operatic
circles, he has a natural feel for the rhythm of the genre
and in supporting singers. The Manchester Concert Orchestra,
formed ten years ago by Raymond Gubbay to perform in concerts
of popular music in the north west of England, did so
on this evening with obvious enthusiasm and accomplishment
in both the orchestral pieces and when accompanying the
singers and chorus. The latter was the only disappointment
of the evening. Under-nourished for male singers they
lacked any real feel even for the lovely melody that underpins
the popular Nabucco chorus. They did manage to
rise to the choral support of Borodin’s Polovtsian
dances but showed little sympathy for Mascagni’s
Easter Hymn, which followed the same opera’s Intermezzo,
played with fine string tone, much as the flutes and woodwind
did in the introductory Rossini overture..
If
the photographs of Andrew Greenwood and Jonathan Summers
in the programme were a bit dated, the detail contained
including singer biographies and a detailed paragraph
on each item of the concert was very welcome for the modest
price of £2.50. Just to add gloss for the more frequent
visitors to the Bridgewater for this Gubbay Christmas
Festival, the same programme had the details in full for
all the concerts to be staged at the hall as part of the
season. It may be populist, but the Festival has sent
many classical and opera lovers away satisfied and happy;
and that is surely what the Festive season is all about.
Robert J Farr
