{"id":35678,"date":"2016-03-30T10:44:04","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T14:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=35678"},"modified":"2016-03-30T10:58:32","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T14:58:32","slug":"scrutiny-everybody-loves-a-tenor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/03\/30\/scrutiny-everybody-loves-a-tenor\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | It\u2019s a Bird! It\u2019s a Plane! It\u2019s\u2026Four Tenors!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The four tenors of the COC Ensemble Studio (Andrew Haji, Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, Charles Sy, and Aaron Sheppard); Jennifer Szeto and Hyejin Kwon: pianists; (Photo: Lara Hintelmann)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The four tenors of the COC Ensemble Studio at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. March 29, 2016.<\/h3>\n

Allow me to steal this little meme from Superman. I think if he were in the audience at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre today, he would not only have forgiven me, but he would also have cheered alongside the overflowing, 250+ crowd of opera lovers. Everybody loves a tenor. And when it\u2019s not one but four <\/em>of them lending their collective voices to a program of operatic chestnuts and Neapolitan Songs, the several members of the audience, primarily female, could be forgiven for being a touch delirious\u2026<\/p>\n

The tenor voice has always been a bit of a special breed. The great Aussie diva\/Met soprano Frances Alda titled her memoir Men, Women and Tenors<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 need I say more? \u00a0And when you have four really good tenors who are members of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, there\u2019s reason to celebrate. With two to graduate imminently, now\u2019s the time to have a concert. And what\u2019s a tenor\u2019s concert without the warhorses, particularly of the Italian variety? \u00a0In the best of times, there\u2019s a lineup for these free noon-hour concerts.\u00a0 I was told that the lineup today went from the main entrance all the way south to Richmond Street.<\/p>\n

The four singers were Andrew Haji, Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, Charles Sy and Aaron Sheppard, and the two pianists were Jennifer Szeto and Hyejin Kwon. Charles Sy kicked off the proceedings with \u201cLa donna e mobile\u201d from Rigoletto<\/em>. He sang with his customary warmth and ingratiating sound, an excellent start to the concert. Then it was Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure\u2019s turn.\u00a0 J-P, as his friends and colleagues call him, has what is called a tenore di grazia<\/em>, a compact sized, warm, sweet sound that\u2019s perfect as Nemorino and the lighter Italian repertoire. For his solo, he chose the famous Tosti song \u201cNon t\u2019amo piu,\u201d which he sang with sweet, plangent tone and great expression, complete with a rather unexpected high option, sung in head voice. Bravo!<\/p>\n

Then it was Andrew Haji\u2019s turn to shine. He certainly has received the most accolades of the four, including the \u201cTriple Crown\u201d at the \u2018s- Hertogenbosch International Vocal Competition in the Netherlands. He was an endearing Alfredo in La traviata<\/em> at the COC last fall, and will take on Rodolfo in La boheme<\/em> this June at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Tamino in Die Zauberfloete<\/em> at the COC next season. Haji has developed by leaps and bounds since his early Rob Ford: The Opera<\/em> days.\u00a0 He chose Nemorino\u2019s aria, \u201cUna furtive largima,\u201d His lyric tenor sounded absolutely gorgeous, totally even and secure throughout its range.\u00a0 He did not rush, taking his time to give the words their full measure at the end of the aria. I predict great things for this singer.<\/p>\n

The last of the four solos was sung by Aaron Sheppard. He is in his first year in the Ensemble, has a pleasing, naturally produced, modest-sized, soft-grained tenor. Today, he chose to sing \u201cLa barcheta,\u201d (The Little Boat) one of six songs in the lovely cycle, Venezia<\/em> by Venezuelan composer Reynaldo Hahn. It\u2019s about a pair of lovers in a boat on a moonlit night in Venice. Sheppard sang the whole song affectingly in a nice, plangent mezza voce<\/em>. The last solo was by Charles Sy, in that showstopper \u201cDein ist mein ganzes Herz\u201d from Lehar\u2019s Land of Smiles<\/em>.\u00a0 Often sung as an encore, it requires a full lyric sound and a generous spirit, both amply supplied by Sy. His warm timbre and ample top did justice to this most beautiful of Viennese bon-bons. His last high note, attacked three times, was very well done, making up for the rather abrupt end to the top note in \u201cLa donna e mobile\u201d earlier. Throughout these five selections, pianist Jennifer Szeto was the rock in terms of total support, always attentive and making small adjustments to be in synch with the singers.<\/p>\n

The final group was three extremely popular Neapolitan Songs, with Hyejin Kwon at the piano. It began with \u201cCore \u2018n grato\u201d, sometimes called \u201cCatari, catari.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps it was a bit tentative in the beginning \u2013 after all, the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre doesn\u2019t have the ambience of Little Italy!\u00a0 But miraculously after a few minutes, it caught fire. All four guys really got into it, starting with \u201cFuniculi, funicula\u201d which is one of those fun songs anyway \u2013 pun intended!\u00a0 Okay, I don\u2019t speak Italian, let alone Neapolitan dialect, but an Italian friend at the concert said the diction of the singers were excellent \u2013 Kudos to their language coach! The last of the three was \u201cLa Danza,\u201d with the long piano introduction played flawlessly by Hyejin Kwon. The text is even more challenging in this piece but the four tenors were amply able to wrap their tongues around the enormous number of words at breakneck speed while not sacrificing beauty of tone.<\/p>\n

With the formal part of the program done, the audience showed their appreciation with a well-deserved standing ovation.\u00a0 Anything else?\u00a0 Well, the obligatory \u201cO solo mio\u201d of course, the Neapolitan Song to end all Neapolitan Songs, followed by the Puccini warhorse, \u201cNessun dorma.\u201d\u00a0 The Four Tenors have to follow the tradition set by The Three Tenors (Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras) in their 1990 Rome concert in celebration of the World Cup. Our four guys were in two rival groups, going in for some highly competitive singing. By then, they were totally relaxed and having fun, like the audience.\u00a0 It was hilarious to see them trying to top each other with interpolated high notes. As to be expected, the audience went wild at the end. I love Schubert and Mahler and Hugo Wolf, but I\u2019ll be honest – at the end of the day, there\u2019s nothing like a tenor shindig with an Italian menu\u2026<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Everybody loves a tenor. And when it\u2019s not one but four of them lending their collective voices to a program of operatic chestnuts and Neapolitan Songs, the several members of the audience, primarily female, could be forgiven for being a touch delirious\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":35682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,76,19,52,70],"tags":[5128,279,628,5130,6053],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/03\/four-tenors.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-9hs","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35678"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35687,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35678\/revisions\/35687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35678"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=35678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}