Donizetti and Friends; Opera Rara concert, Cadogan Hall, London SW1, 5☆☆☆☆☆. Review” Clare Colvin.

Photo Credit: Russell Duncan.

Donizetti and Friends; Opera Rara concert, Cadogan Hall, London SW1

5☆☆☆☆☆. Review: Clare Colvin.

“Gathering of the Romantics.”

In a humorous touch Opera Rara’s concert last week was titled “Donizetti and Friends.” The friend in common was none other than the French composer Hector Berlioz.  In what was dubbed “the war of the Romantics” by Paris music critics in the 1840s, Berlioz complained that the visiting incomer had seven operas either rehearsing or performing in Paris’s opera houses.   Professor Roger Parker, who has spent two years tracking down nearly 200 solo songs of Donizetti, suggests in a programme note that though the two “Romantics” had a difficult professional rapport, their musical proximity might be instructive for our appreciation of the composers’ different styles.    

As it certainly proved in the concert pairing, the two virtuosi - Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux and American tenor Michael Spyres, with Giulio Zappa as accompanist, were in  flourishing romantic form.     Spyres can ping out a top E on occasion, and has the richness of tone that sometimes earns the category of baritenor - he is soon to take on the role of Tristan in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.   Marie-Nicole Lemieux has a powerful personality and can range from tragic queen to bold Mistress Quickly, good to hold her own against the likes of Sir John Falstaff.   

The special quality of Donizetti’s songs in this concert is that the songs are all individual songs, rather than taken from operas.   The song sheets were often dispersed after being performed in European libraries or given away as a present to a dedicatee.      Starting with Donizetti’s “L’aube naît et ta porte est close”, Spyres moved to “Si tu m’a fait a ton image” and “Oh ne me chasse pas” before going on to the Berlioz of “La Belle Voyageuse” and “L’Origine de la Harpe”.  Among the other songs were Donizetti’s “La Dernière Nuit d’un Novice” in which a young novice monk is tempted by “le Malin esprit” to dream about having a wife and baby, rather than enter a celibate life in a seminary.   Donizetti’s “Aux filles que l’ennui chagrine” is voiced by girls fed up with the inadequate men in their village.           

Berlioz’s duet from Les Troyens, “Nuit d’ivresse” was glorious to listen to, and an unusual encore brought the evening to a storming end, with the final duet between Carmen and Don José.  For a moment, after Carmen had hurled the ring at José, we wondered where it would end.