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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Never bite a tenor
By David BlakeOpera Gala; Three Tenors; Cairo Symphony Orchestra; conductor Janos Acs; soloists Giuliano Di Filippo, Sergio Panajia and Vittorio Pulzelli. Main Hall, Cairo Opera House, 20 March.
Tenors lead violent, stormy lives. They can do anything -- bite, kick, punch. Nor are they above wreaking havoc on entire operatic productions if they feel their interests have been ignored. Monarchs of all they survey, they are the kings of the overheated jungle scene that is the opera world. And in this gorgeous, exotic, excessive atmosphere, they are both loved and detested. Yet being a tenor is also about hard work, study and physical denial, of which these three young visitors gave a good demonstration.
To face a throng of tenor admirers must be a chilling business for tenor fans love their singers only so long as they deliver. The slightest slip-up, though, and tenor be warned: he must tread carefully lest he become the object of the darker side of tenor-fan love. There is the slow clap, the sotto voce hiss, and this is before the insults get really nasty. Nothing approaching such calamity happened at this concert. It was happy, healthy and delivered with professional expertise.
Yet the tension that invariably accompanies such tenor shows was everywhere in the air, generating the kind of excitement more usual in the football stadium. Tenor fans never understand the true meaning of the operatic message. All they value is a big voice. They sit on the edge of their seats like birds waiting to be fed. They watch for it coming, the big aria, and when it begins they are off. And when the big thing has been delivered successfully there are screams of love and satisfaction. Singing, whether Sinatra or Caruso, is a primary sexual manifestation. The great dramatic sopranos can deliver electric shocks not even tenors can attain. Divas are loved in a manner far outside the football grounds of the tenors. They are worshipped. The world bows low before a great soprano even in 1999.
Male and female divi, therefore, mostly hate each other. Fortunately, there was none of this at this concert. The men were at it alone, the scene was theirs, and they made the most of it. All three had strong, forthright voices. There were no mother-kissing-softly, sensuous sounds made; what we had was the full bull. And the big audience responded accordingly. As the show romped on, the audience grew noisier and more expressive with their words of encouragement. Everyone was having a ball, most of all the tenors themselves.
All three were robusto. There was no sentimentality or velvet-edged high notes. It was more platinum than gold: nothing sagged, no longeurs. Even the old nuts were given a good crack. How they sang out. We had all the words of the mostly an Italian repertoire, all the proper tones and dramatic feeling. But it was not a song recital, it was opera, and as each aria slotted into its place in the full programme it became possible to note the singers' different approaches to the music at hand.
Vittorio Pulzelli; Sergio Panajia Giuliano Di Filippo is dramatic, strong, meaningful. His Offenbach aria from The Tales of Hoffman was almost curt, brisk and mystical. Sergio Panajia gave an heroic over-the-top rendering of the aria from Bellini's opera I Puritani, a piece which has made tenor reputations for centuries and undone as many.
As the evening progressed it became clear that Janos Acs is yet another marvel from Budapest, the city at the heart of Hungarian music. What an operatic revelation. Throughout the long night his powerful beat and understanding and sympathy were miraculous. The singers were aided and abetted and, despite the brisk, pulsating tempo, never hurried. Not one phrase was chopped up to make way for a maestro in a rush.
The Cairo Symphony Orchestra is a great boon for, however well the smaller Cairo Opera Orchestra plays, the Cairo Symphony produces the correct grandeur. We were given the big swoops of energy to the beautiful verismo pieces which included maybe the most beautiful aria given to the tenor in all opera, the Flower Song from Carmen. Vittorio Pulzelli, singing with a simple shock of surprise, was a vulnerable, doomed creature.
A Puccini masterpiece, Manon Lescaut, had Janos Acs show Puccini's genius pure. It is usually misunderstood. He went further when he came to allazzurro spazio, Giordano's aria from Andrea Chenier. This was the brightest piece of the concert. The decorated music flooded through the opera house as the tenor gave out its bitter message.
The concert went on to encores, and the trio ended with O Sole Mio in full-throated major key with the Cairo Symphony in full-blaze. They were like three lanterns waving in the wind from some faraway evening garden party showing the world what song is about.
Nothing like a tenor unless it be three. They are worth their weight in those rose red diamonds that turn always into beautiful black notes by night.
