Review: The best on a summer’s night

Our Joseph – our national pride – always fronts a superb summer concert and gives everyone who cannot hear him being acclaimed at one of the world’s major opera houses, a chance to hear him in a programme of crowd-pleasing favourites that range from hum-along arias, to pop chart-toppers and Neapolitan singalong classics. Joseph understands his audience.

On Thursday, he lived up to expectation. His evening under the stars ended with the audience of thousands in standing ovation. The ingredients were a curiously uneven cocktail of mega-wattage talents.

Of course, the astonishing quality of Joseph Calleja’s soaring tenor would hold the evening together. But there was a tangible and disappointing lack of magic between the tenor and the late-night sophistication of the legendary Dionne Warwick, whose own first recognised hit, Anyone Who Had A Heart, was in 1963, 15 years before Joseph was born to Rita and Charles Calleja. And the big-gunned range of emotional showmanship from the diminutive Italian singer-songwriter, Riccardo Cocciante, with a sizeable fan base in Malta, seemed at times to be playing to a different arena.

Rather than allow each guest to present a unique set of their own, in this production each artiste sang one number in turn and then exited stage left trailing conductor or accompanist. This made for lulls that added to the feeling the evening was not flowing as it might, though few could question the fact that three supreme talents were appearing. It took until the second half for the audience to be seduced.

Massed on stage were the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra in enthusiastic form under the baton of visiting conductor Paul Bateman and, flanking them, was a children’s choir of 500 young singers that was equally enthusiastic with hardly a nervous fidget on show.

Calleja, elegantly tailored and suntanned, started the evening with Andrea Bocelli’s Canto dellaTerra and, from that moment, the audience was his. Then came Cocciante to sing a forceful Bella senz’anima. Calleja followed charmingly with a duet from La Traviata with budding soprano Maria Abela, the President’s daughter, currently studying in Italy but destined for a soloist’s career.

Dionne Warwick appeared floating on stage like a gracious diva, to sing her first number, Heartbreaker. One should never discuss a diva’s age, but her hit from 1982 sounded as fresh as ever, as did Close To You, Alfie and the other songs she has made her own. No one does soft and mellow like Warwick though, perhaps, these great songs are better suited to a more intimate cabaret venue than Floriana’s open space.

During the interval the question rattled around: What would Warwick and Calleja sing together? As it happened, nothing. But as if to make up for this lapse, she was twice joined by one of her son, singer and songwriter David Elliott. First there was a jazz flavoured version of I Say A Little Prayer (that was as far from blessed Dusty Springfield’s version as was possible) and then mother and son enjoyed themselves in a rousing free-wheeling version of That’s What Friends Are For.

Cocciante, having begun forcefully with Bella senz’anima, returned each time to let his raw energy build up: Nella fantasia, Poesia, Quando finisce un amore and his greatest crowd pleaser, Margherita. Singing La festa si amonoi with the choir he brought the evening vividly to life and later Se stiamo insieme in duet with the Maltese tenor had the audience yelling for more.

As for Calleja, what can one say? With blue eyes, warm smile and a rich voice that appears to more impressive every day, he held the evening together effortlessly. He appeared to enjoy the audience as much as the audience enjoyed him. Instinctively he supplied what everyone wanted to hear. All around pocket-sized recorders whirled as he sang gloriously through Werther’s Pourquoime reveiller as well as the more predictable arias like Verdi’s La donna èmobile and emotional renditions of Puccini’s NessunDorma and that great old Neapolitan ristorante stand-by, OSoleMio.

With Calleja’s voice and charm it is little wonder he is Malta’s best ambassador abroad today. His membership form for the Xirka Ġieħ ir-Repubblika should be in the post.