A good tenor is hard to find, you say? Well, Toronto opera fans should count their blessings, as the new opera season is particularly rich in the tenor department.
The fall COC season boasts four internationally renowned tenors making their respective Company debut. American Heldentenor Clay Hilley is a sensational Florestan in Fidelio, while Samoan tenor is marvelous as Rodolfo in La Boheme. His alternate, Chinese tenor Kang Wang, has sung this role to great acclaim elsewhere and his COC debut on October 22 is highly anticipated.
Last, but not least is Canada’s own, tenor Josh Lovell, as a clarion-voiced and dramatically engaging Jacquino. In this recital last Tuesday, we got to experience another side of his artistry. In a program of songs by Benjamin Britten, Gabriel Fauré, Richard Strauss and Franz Liszt, he amply demonstrated his versatility as both an opera singer and a recitalist. Lovell possesses a voice in its prime, an instrument of rock-solid technique and beautiful timbre, used with sensitivity and expressivity.
True to the theme of Love in its Many Forms, the program opened with Britten’s Canticle 1 (“My beloved is Mine, and I am his”). This work premiered in 1947 on the tenth anniversary of the passing of Dick Sheppard, the Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, although it’s remembered for its subtext, involving the issue of male love at a time of rampant homophobia in post-war Britain. Musically challenging given the seemingly disparate accompaniment in relation to the vocal line, but Lovell dispatched it with aplomb.
This was followed by an early work by Fauré, Poème d’en jour, a set of three songs about a short-lived love affair that lasts a single day, from Rencontre (infatuation) to Toujours (rejection) to Adieu (acceptance). This piece is less well known than some of the more famous Fauré songs to come later, but it’s interesting just the same. Lovell sang with beauty of tone, with lovely mezza voce in the last song, Adieu.
The third group, Richard Strauss’s justly famous Vier Lieder, Op. 27, is my personal favourite. Strauss wrote this cycle as a wedding present to his wife, Pauline. Lovell sang only three of the four – Cäcilie, Heimliche Aufforderung, and Morgen, skipping Ruhe meine Seele, the most sombre of the four. Both Cäcilie and Heimliche Aufforderung are impassioned, ectastic love songs, which Lovell delivered with energy and clarion tone. In contrast, Morgen, arguably the most profound and magnificent of the four, was performed in exquisite mezza voce and great attention to textual nuance. A most winning performance.
The final group was the equally well-known Tre sonetti di Petrarca by Liszt. These are technically very demanding songs, almost operatic in style, requiring plenty of voice – in “Benedetto sia il giorno,” the vocal line goes up to a daunting high C sharp. Well, Mr. Lovell’s great top range was able to do it full justice.
The last song, “I vidi in terra angelici costume” will stay in my memory bank for a special reason. Lovell sang it beautifully, to be sure. But in the song text near the end, it tells of the light, the sky, the trees, the leaves….and suddenly, the electronic shades in the RBA went up, the lights came in, and the beautiful fall colours of the trees on University Avenue was in full view! I thought to myself – maybe it was intentional to resonate with the song text? Perhaps it was a coincidence. In that case it was a miracle, a transcendental moment that likely won’t be repeated for me.
I mustn’t leave out the excellent work of the collaborative pianist Rachael Kerr, who was with the singer every second, performing as one. They took an unhurried tempo throughout. I feel it’s a lot harder to sustain in slow tempo than fast. It takes confidence, or to put it crudely, guts, to be slow. An outstanding noon-hour recital, Bravi tutti!
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