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Popera, the opera sampler, offers perfect evening of music
By Harry Currie
Kitchener Waterloo RecordSaturday, November 26, 2005
Kitchener-Waterloo Opera's Popera concert is a great introduction to the world of opera.
Popera, which was presented at the Centre in the Square yesterday, is an opera sampler, and this year's version - the 20th anniversary edition - included some of the finest music from several of the finest operas by Rossini, Mozart, Verdi, Bizet, Handel, Offenbach, Wagner and Saint-Saens.
Performed by four outstanding Canadian world-ranking singers - coloratura soprano Tracy Dahl, mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy, tenor Gordon Gietz and baritone James Westman - with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony conducted by Daniel Lipton, the music of opera doesn't get any better than this.
Everything about this performance was world-class, from the overture (Verdi's Barber of Seville) to the closing duet from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.
Westman displayed great variety in style, from the comic Largo al factotum, complete with dropping his pants to display a Canadian flag, to the angry lord of Lammermoor Castle, and joined in harmony with a Mozart trio and Zitti, Zitti from the Barber.
Wetman's intense Per me glunto from Don Carlo again demonstrated his wide variety of style.
What a warm, beautiful and agile voice McHardy possesses, and what a range, so beautifully displayed in Una voce poco fa and Ombra mai fu from Handel's Xerxes - better known as Largo - and the exquisite My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice from Samson and Delilah.
Tracy Dahl is indeed something else, with a glorious coloratura, so clear and so controlled in Ach, ich fuhl's and O zitt're nicht from The Magic Flute, and Caro nome from Rigoletto was exceptional, showing her extraordinary skill in handling the decorative passages.
Gietz was suffering from a chest congestion, but you'd never have known it. His remarkable lyric tenor held without apparent difficulty in The Legend of Kleinzach from The Tales of Hoffman and the sprightly Questa o quella from Rigoletto.
A highlight was the famous Flower Duet from Lakme. With those two glorious voices of Dahl and McHardy, I doubt it has ever been sung better.
And what a marvellous orchestra is our K-W Symphony, playing with such restraint and control, perfectly in tune and with delicate phrasing throughout the concert.
If there is a perfect evening of vocal music, this was it.
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