Ossian Huskinson (bass-baritone) with Matthew Fletcher (piano), Lakeside, Nottingham 25 January, 2024. 4****: William Ruff

Nottingham

Ossian Huskinson (bass-baritone) with Matthew Fletcher (piano)

Lakeside, Nottingham

25 January, 2024

4****: William Ruff

“Vivid musical story-telling from a singer with a bright future.”

Ossian Huskinson is an award-winning young singer who last performed at Nottingham University’s Lakeside venue two years ago. The verdict then was that he has a rich, powerful, incisive voice, clearly capable of filling the biggest arenas but adaptable to small, intimate spaces too. In the last two years he has more than fulfilled his promise, winning prestigious prizes and performing a wide variety of operatic roles in this country and abroad. Members of Thursday’s audience could be heard speculating on his future: surely none of the great operatic roles are off-limits? Wagner’s Wotan perhaps, bestriding the world’s stages, summoning the Valkyries to do his will?

This may seem a long way from his Lakeside recital, just himself and his pianist in a small space in front of a friendly home-crowd. However, this recital vividly presented his musical trump card. He is a born story-teller and he sings with his eyes, his arms, his hands, indeed his whole physical being. The words of the songs were made as important as the notes and the effect on the audience was like being held by the Ancient Mariner’s glittering eye. And throughout the recital he was supported by the exemplary playing of pianist Matthew Fletcher whose command of tonal colour and response to textual detail were consistently impressive.

Ossian began his recital with Richard Rodney Bennett’s Songs Before Sleep, a set of six songs whose titles suggest innocent lullabies but which turn out to include something much darker and unsettling. Take Wee Willie Winkie, for example, with its spiky rhythms (expertly handled by Matthew Fletcher) and an agitated mother’s sense of panic as her wilful child refuses to succumb to sleep. Twinkle, twinkle, little star was altogether more restful, with some beautifully sustained singing, caressing the well-known words. However, Baby, baby; naughty baby which followed was the very opposite of a lullaby, the naughty child subjected to increasingly dire threats…including cannibalism! Ossian Huskinson relished the whole macabre drama.

His operatic experience shone through in Schubert’s Erlkönig, Mussorgsky’s Song of the Flea and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Song of the Viking Guest. Each had a vivid sense of character, the voice skilfully matched to each narrative’s precise needs, switching in the case of Schubert’s father, son and sinister elf from one to the other with terrifying ease.

There was a world premiere on the programme: Gus Tredwell’s setting of Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci, an imaginative rendering of another supernatural narrative, effective on first hearing but with depths which deserve repeated performances. Vivid scene-setting, minutely responsive word-painting, emotionally intelligent insight into character and motivation: all these were achieved by composer and performers.

Frederick Keel’s Three Salt-water Ballads ended the recital, combining Edwardian nostalgia for the sea with a virtuosic approach to the words of each ballad. The poems contain lots of sound effects, a highly entertaining work-out for the singer’s tongue, teeth and vocal chords – especially in the concluding Mother Carey. In short, an enjoyable, satisfying recital – with the prospect of an even more exciting future.