Daniil Shtoda has, in some quarters, been acclaimed as the next great
Russian tenor (even being compared with Gedda and Wunderlich, two of
the greatest lyric tenors of the last century), but it is an opinion
this reviewer believes to be both misguided and premature, at least
based on this recital. More a ‘tenorino’ than tenor, he has the ability
to strike the top notes with razor sharp precision (with one notable
exception, as I shall describe later) but the problem is that his ultra-high
voice reveals a distinct lack of depth to his interpretations with,
for example, the darker broadside of the Rachmaninov songs being conspicuously
missing in this recital.
And how unfortunate that we only heard him in Russian
songs. The over-riding impression of much of this recital was of one
that lacked tonal colour, with much of the Tchaikovsky being delivered
in the kind of deadpan manner, with a lack of expressivity that did
these songs little favour. Romances – such as ‘I’ll tell you nothing’
and ‘Serenade’ – provided little insight into Tchaikovsky’s almost obsessive
preoccupation with the unhappiness of love, although the tonal colouring
he brought to ‘At bedtime’ induced the right sort of blandness to mirror
its mediocre stanzas. Indeed, Shtoda seemed almost as convinced as the
rest of us that the word settings of Tchaikovsky’s songs display a lack
of sentiment that rather than emphasising the musical values of the
composer’s composition undermine it further.
Rachmaninov’s songs are a different matter – even though
the eleven played here tended to come from his earliest years and don’t
always match the emotional complexity of his last ones. Yet, ‘the Isle’,
with its sonorous vocal line accompanied by a sparse piano one, has
great simplicity and Shtoda delivered it with the kind of vocal dexterity
he simply hadn’t been able to summon for the Tchaikovsky songs. ‘Again
you leapt, my heart’ and ‘ How everyone loves you’ displayed Shtoda’s
ability to grade dynamics – and at the close of the latter he summoned
the most pristine, most beautifully balanced pianissimo I have
heard in a very long time.
Changing the order of the songs as published in the
programme did Shtoda little favours, it should be said (and fooled even
the most distinguished of vocal critics who got lost amid the transliterated
Russian). ‘How long, my friend’, scheduled as the seventh song, was
put last – and primarily for the reason that its last line is a vocal
display of top note-hitting. Unfortunately for Shtoda he had little
stamina to hold the long, top C the result being that the longer he
sustained it the more it lost projection and faltered.
Shtoda was accompanied throughout this recital by Larissa
Gergieva (sister of Valery Gergiev, and Shtoda’s vocal coach) and her
playing never once seemed intrusive and over-sized. Indeed, throughout
the Rachmaninov her playing was notable for its exactness of sonority
and resplendent tone. Shtoda has some way to go before he matches her
range of emotivity.