A triumphal evening
Concert: Joseph Calleja, Mdina Catheral Square
Although dubbed Joseph Calleja 10th anniversary concert, this was virtually a double triumph for the young singer and his young wife, soprano Tatjana Lisnic. This simply because they shared the singing, whether in solo numbers or duets. With musical direction in the capable hands of Brian Schembri conducting the Sofia National Opera Orchestra, few would disagree that this was a triple triumph. Also playing an important part was Simone Attard's Mirabitur choir and the orchestra was augmented with Paul Borg's Versatile Brass Ensemble.
The Silent City vibrated with the sound of beautiful music in a unique atmosphere. The square was packed full, and one could hardly see a window, door, balcony or roof unoccupied by enthusiastic opera buffs. The public just loved the singers who established a very warm rapport with them right away, wherever they were. There were some surprisingly unannounced late changes to the programme but whatever was performed was done so with the greatest class and taste.
This was evident from the start with Verdi's overture to La Forza del Destino, one of his best overtures and which had the orchestra playing with crispness and verve under the authoritative yet flexible baton of Brian Schembri. There was also a most elegant and suave touch to the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin, the evening's only other purely orchestral piece. The choir delivered a very poignant and warm rendering of Va' pensiero from Verdi's Nabucco. This was marked by a surprising short cut in the last sustained note on the final "virtù" and as for the triumphal march and ballet music from Verdi's Aida, there were one or two stray notes in the brass. The choir sang with gusto and well-controlled enthusiasm and the ballet music was lithe and rightly sounded very sinuously exotic. Very evocative was the choir's rendering of the Humming Chorus from Puccini's Madama Butterfly.
The audience's darling made an aptly swaggering and nonchalant but beautifully controlled interpretation of Questa o quella from Verdi's Rigoletto and changed tack into a love-lorn Don José in La fleur que tu m'avais jetée from Bizet's Carmen. Joseph Calleja is also fast establishing a reputation abroad as a worthy interpreter of some of the best roles in French opera. This piece and a duet later proved this only too well. The voice has become warmer, retains its crystalline and limpid quality whenever this is necessary, is stronger in the lower reaches and generally has expanded broadly.
When turning to Italian opera again, it was to that most poignant and heartfelt Lamento di Federico from Cilea's L'Arlesiana that Joseph Calleja brought out all the desperate yet appealing unhappiness with which the piece is redolent.
Tatjana Lisnic, La Signora Calleja in real life, may have a lower profile locally but she is a singer of great accomplishment. Any connoisseur could tell from the moment she opens her mouth to sing that she is a singer of great class. Her wide-ranging voice is a combination of articulate limpidity, assured in every register, with an amazing sweetness of timbre and unlimited interpretative power. In Mercè, dilette amiche from Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani she sang with great gusto and agility in this virtual coloratura piece. She chose Cilea too for one of her numbers. The delicacy of her voice echoed in the upper strings in Io son l'umile ancella from Adriana Lecouvreur, rounding off this piece with its excitingly chromatic final bars. The agility displayed earlier came with another strong dose in Il bel sogno di Doretta from Puccini's La Rondine.
Now with a pair like this how could it not be a foregone conclusion that the duets they sang would enchant the audience no end? First in the charming Parlez-moi de ma mere from Bizet's Carmen, then in an arrangement of the highly-charged Dein ist mein ganzes Herz from Lehar's Das Land des Laechelns and in the supremely tender Love Duet from Puccini's Madama Butterfly. This ended the concert with a standing ovation. Neither was it the last for Joseph Calleja earned two more with encores like Nessun dorma from Puccini's Turandot and Lara's Granada. Tatjana Lisnic scored another hit with her tongue in cheek Quando m'en vo' from Puccini's La Bohème and the couple earned another ovation with their rendering of Brodsky's Be My Love. Never were ovations better or the plaudits earned by Brian Schembri. Mdina 07/07/07 was a truly memorable and fortuitous event.
The Silent City vibrated with the sound of beautiful music in a unique atmosphere. The square was packed full, and one could hardly see a window, door, balcony or roof unoccupied by enthusiastic opera buffs. The public just loved the singers who established a very warm rapport with them right away, wherever they were. There were some surprisingly unannounced late changes to the programme but whatever was performed was done so with the greatest class and taste.
This was evident from the start with Verdi's overture to La Forza del Destino, one of his best overtures and which had the orchestra playing with crispness and verve under the authoritative yet flexible baton of Brian Schembri. There was also a most elegant and suave touch to the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin, the evening's only other purely orchestral piece. The choir delivered a very poignant and warm rendering of Va' pensiero from Verdi's Nabucco. This was marked by a surprising short cut in the last sustained note on the final "virtù" and as for the triumphal march and ballet music from Verdi's Aida, there were one or two stray notes in the brass. The choir sang with gusto and well-controlled enthusiasm and the ballet music was lithe and rightly sounded very sinuously exotic. Very evocative was the choir's rendering of the Humming Chorus from Puccini's Madama Butterfly.
The audience's darling made an aptly swaggering and nonchalant but beautifully controlled interpretation of Questa o quella from Verdi's Rigoletto and changed tack into a love-lorn Don José in La fleur que tu m'avais jetée from Bizet's Carmen. Joseph Calleja is also fast establishing a reputation abroad as a worthy interpreter of some of the best roles in French opera. This piece and a duet later proved this only too well. The voice has become warmer, retains its crystalline and limpid quality whenever this is necessary, is stronger in the lower reaches and generally has expanded broadly.
When turning to Italian opera again, it was to that most poignant and heartfelt Lamento di Federico from Cilea's L'Arlesiana that Joseph Calleja brought out all the desperate yet appealing unhappiness with which the piece is redolent.
Tatjana Lisnic, La Signora Calleja in real life, may have a lower profile locally but she is a singer of great accomplishment. Any connoisseur could tell from the moment she opens her mouth to sing that she is a singer of great class. Her wide-ranging voice is a combination of articulate limpidity, assured in every register, with an amazing sweetness of timbre and unlimited interpretative power. In Mercè, dilette amiche from Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani she sang with great gusto and agility in this virtual coloratura piece. She chose Cilea too for one of her numbers. The delicacy of her voice echoed in the upper strings in Io son l'umile ancella from Adriana Lecouvreur, rounding off this piece with its excitingly chromatic final bars. The agility displayed earlier came with another strong dose in Il bel sogno di Doretta from Puccini's La Rondine.
Now with a pair like this how could it not be a foregone conclusion that the duets they sang would enchant the audience no end? First in the charming Parlez-moi de ma mere from Bizet's Carmen, then in an arrangement of the highly-charged Dein ist mein ganzes Herz from Lehar's Das Land des Laechelns and in the supremely tender Love Duet from Puccini's Madama Butterfly. This ended the concert with a standing ovation. Neither was it the last for Joseph Calleja earned two more with encores like Nessun dorma from Puccini's Turandot and Lara's Granada. Tatjana Lisnic scored another hit with her tongue in cheek Quando m'en vo' from Puccini's La Bohème and the couple earned another ovation with their rendering of Brodsky's Be My Love. Never were ovations better or the plaudits earned by Brian Schembri. Mdina 07/07/07 was a truly memorable and fortuitous event.