The atmosphere in the pleasant lounge adjoining the lobby of the Theater am Bismarckplatz, one of the many architectural jewels in the central Bavarian town of Regensburg was the usual mood before what the Germans like to call a ‘gala’.
Accustomed to challenging encounters with ponderous culture in both the theatre and the concert hall, audiences occasionally treat themselves to a lighter evening by bringing in some au courant star on the musical horizon with a relatively short presentation of old favourites to put a layer of artistic frosting on the rich cake of a weekend event designed as a chance to see and be seen.
Invariably predictable, it generally features the local theatre orchestra and some high-end imported celebrity in a programme of yesteryear’s operatic or concert hits, greeted by the kind of polite applause that reminded pianist-conductor André Previn of the muffled sound of ladies in white kid gloves palpating the posterior of a poodle.
Occasions like these are often treated as cultural obligations prior to the main event, and the stellar talents brought in to spangle the night frequently give performances they might just as well have phoned in, while the public response was summed up with macabre wit in a remark made several years ago by the late Viennese star bass-baritone Walter Berry, who after just such an evening asked the impresario how he was planning to get that capacity crowd back to the morgue.
Regensburg is an upmarket jewel box of a town, still profiting from the largesse of the ruling family, the Princes of Thurn und Taxis, who invented the international institution of the post office back in the 16th century and continued to own it for centuries.
They showered the profits from these courier services on the neighbourhood, with impressive edifices of all kinds, surrounding St Peter’s, one of the most magnificent Gothic cathedrals in Europe, where the present Pope’s older brother, Georg Ratzinger, once led the world-renowned ‘Sparrows’ boys’ choir.
The assemblage gathered in the handsome theatre for some appetising musical fare presented by an artist from one of those ‘M’ islands in the Mediterranean – Mallorca? Mykonos? Whatever – where some have enjoyed a beach holiday or sent their children for language lessons.
The audience was about to get appreciably more than it had bargained for when an important operatic artist self-effacingly stepped onto their stage, acknowledged the welcoming applause and proceeded to bring worlds of profundity to vibrant life before their eyes and ears, turning old chestnuts into banquets of deeper significance.
Ably accompanied by the first-rate conducting of Regensburg’s music director, Kyoto-born Maestro Tetsuro Ban leading a fairly indifferent and under-rehearsed theatre orchestra, Joseph Calleja, using only the evocative power of a major voice and the total interconnection of mind, heart and soul as his tools of communication, opened previously undiscovered worlds of meaning in music which other tenors belt out without much involvement as tried and true crowd pleasers before they grab the money and run.
Opening with Nemorino’s little entrance aria from Gaetano Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, Calleja suddenly transformed himself into a naïve bumpkin, just out of his teens, trying to understand the new sensation he feels at the sight of his beloved, then moving on, purified by the sight of a hidden tear to appreciate what it means to love and be loved.
Anyone who understands Italian rejoiced in the way Calleja imbued every syllable with native accuracy, and anyone who understands love knew more about it from a top-class vocal rendition seemingly emerging from the throat of an innocent child.
Retaining his crystalline diction along with his highly developed musical and emotional intelligence, Calleja took the audience through what Richard Wagner called a Gesamtkunstwerk, a work of art not restricted to a single expressive form, coupled with what William Shakespeare referred to as the ages of man, moving on from Nemorino to the young nobleman Macduff from Shakespeare and Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth, bewailing the murder of his young family at the hands of hired killers, then touching on the decency of the King of Sweden in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera sacrificing a deeply-held passion in the interest of human decency, while suspecting the tragedy might end in his own demise.
He completed the first half of the evening with the reverie of artist Mario Cavaradossi, whose doom has been sealed, reflecting one last time on all he had loved and lost in “E lucevan le Stelle” from Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca.
After the interval, Calleja continued operatically, again plumbing the depths of Goethe’s Werther in an aria from the operatic version of that poet’s story by Jules Massenet, before turning to one of his own discoveries, “Io Conosco un Giardino” from the opera Maristella by little-known Italian composer Giuseppe Pietri, a piece well worth unearthing.
He concluded with a majestic prayer to the sovereign of heaven in another piece taken by Massenet from a great work of literature: Le Cid by the immortal Pierre Corneille.
By now, the initially stolid crowd of provincial sophisticates had been transformed into a raging crowd of enthusiasts that would have given groupies at a rock concert a run for their money, rising to their feet for one standing ovation after another,, simply refusing to let the tenor from Malta – right, that’s the name of that island! – leave the stage.
All the traditional war horses passed in review, with something extra in each presentation, Torna a Sorrento overflowed with nostalgia, Calleja’s voice soared like the migrating swallows – one hopes widely circumventing Gozo - evoked in the lyrics of Non ti scordar di Me, and he then capped the evening with O Sole Mio, shining the radiant sun down on his own beloved Mediterranean shores in bafflingly authentic Neapolitan dialect. This final encore was received with such frantic enthusiasm, he had to repeat it.
All in all, an audience that had shown up for a little cultural hors d’œuvre before a diverting evening of handshakes, kiss-kiss and chit-chat found itself treated to a nourishing musical feast it will need more than the rest of the weekend to digest completely.