Recital
Francesca Aquilina, Ross Wilson, Sofia Narmania
St James Cavalier

There is nothing more pleasant than to see the unfolding and development of new talent. This is the case with Francesca Aquilina, whose voice, while still that of a light soprano, has been maturing well along those lines. Hers is a beautifully limpid and attractive voice which with her outgoing and confident personality helps to bring the message home whatever she happens to sing. She generally sings with little effort, and while comfortable in all registers, she still has to work more on reaching some of her top notes with a little more clarity. She will get there given the potential she possesses and the good coaching she must be receiving.

Tenor Scott Wilson, who like Ms Aquilina sang a number of solos, has some way to go before reaching her level of achievement. This is not making odious comparisons, but said simply because in some of their duets there was an unevenness of projection and intensity of interpretation. Both singers need to work on their diction although in different languages. Their English diction is impeccable, and while Mr Wilson’s German diction is superior to Ms Aquilina’s, the latter’s Italian diction, on the other hand, is superior to his own. For example this made his Ciel e terra armi di sdegno from Handel’s Tamerlano a rather tame affair. In the duet Tu mi lasci from Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, in which in any case the soprano’s role is psychologically the more dominant one, the tenor’s already hapless situation written in the music and text made him sound weaker. The soprano’s relatively less assured German did not detract all that much from her singing, either in Schumann’s duet Wiegenlied (finely balanced with the tenor) or in the Mozart solo lieder An Chloë and Abendenpfindung, the pathos of which came across pretty convincingly. Mr Wilson was at his most convincing in three Quilter songs: Go Lovely Rose followed by Music When Soft Voices Die and Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal, songs which are ideally suited to his voice. He also managed to project a lot of poignancy in Tosti’s Chanson de l’adieu. As for other soprano solos, the French repertoire is very much up the soprano’s street. (Here a little more attention to minor details in diction would not be amiss). The two Chausson songs Les papillons and Le colibri were very articulate and sung with style and class and Bizet’s Me voilà seul…comme autrefois from Les pêcheurs des perles, a far from easy piece was one of the best works she sung all evening. She fared equally well in Walton’s Daphne, through gilded trellises with its manifold vocal trills, and the humorous Old Sir Fauk. Other duets sung were the charming Schenkt man die Rosen from Zeller’s operetta Die Vogelhändler and Bernstein’s Oh Happy We from Candide in which the singers’ efforts did justice to the duet’s title and text. Of course the busiest musician was pianist Sofia Narmania who was the singers’ warmly sympathetic accompanist.