TONY AND THE YOUNG ARTISTS (Royal Opera)****

 

By Imogen 

Link: https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/tony-and-the-young-artists/videos/tony-and-the-young-artists 

Available until: 21^st March 2021

Tony and the Young Artists is a concert performed in the Crush Room and the Royal Opera House. Tony is Antonio Pappano, the Music Director of the Royal Opera House. Three of the current Jette Parker Young Artists appear in this concert, soprano Alexandra Lowe, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Wake-Edwards and tenor Filipe Manu.

They all performed at least one opera aria or duet but there was also art song, cabaret and musical theatre. Some snobs might think only operas should be sung in opera houses but I’m not a snob. These singers might not want to sing opera all the time. They are maximising their earning potential and having fun at the same time so I think they’re being very intelligent.

Stephanie Wake-Edwards opens the concert with Addio, o miei sospiri from Orfeo ed Euridice. She has a very good voice for a mezzo. It’s very powerful and no one else has got a voice quite like hers but in a good way. She says during the concert that she likes characterisation and this is something she shows all the way through the concert. Addio o miei sospiri is so powerful and passionate I almost believed she really was a man.

It is important to have an individual voice in opera because then people will want you and you’ll earn lots more money but the thing with opera is you need to be able to sing with other people. This means you need to be able to blend your voice with others so you need lots of versatility and good vocal control. Stephanie does this when she sings the Baracolle from Les contes d’Hoffman with Alexandra Lowe. This shows she’s versatile and she also has vocal control because she is still able to make her voice sound really good.

The singers also do mini-recitals where they also had a bit of a chat to Tony who is the loveliest man and I’m sure he’d have loved me to be a Jette Parker Young Artist one day if I hadn’t decided there was more money in musical theatre. Stephanie sings cabaret songs by Kurt Weill, Madeleine Dring and William Bolcom. They are all characterised really well and Stephanie sings the style perfectly.

Alexandra Lowe’s first song is the duet Fra gli amplessi from Cosi fan tutte which is sung by Fiordiligi and Ferrando. Alexandra sings and acts the role perfectly. Her phrasing and her understanding of Mozart are very good and she sings the role with passion as Fiordiligi finally decides to ditch the baritone and date the tenor which is what most sensible girls would do. Most tenors are really gorgeous at least when they’re under thirty.

Alexandra’s three songs are by Georges Bizet, Ernest Chausson and Reynaldo Hahn. Her performance is very emotional and expressive and she has a deep connection to the songs and she performs the Hoffmann Baracolle beautifully. She returns for the finale when she sings Tonight from West Side Story with Filipe. It is more operatic than you usually hear but it’s what Leonard Bernstein wanted so when I sing Maria I will sing it operatically. Alexandra is also very warm and emotional and I think all musical theatre fans with at least half a brain will enjoy it.

Filipe starts off by singing Ferrando in the Cosi duet and he is a really phenomenal performer. He’s vocally a bit heavier than a lot of Ferrandos but that doesn’t matter if you know how to phrase it and you still have the flexibility to get round the notes and Filipe has all the skills he needs. He has a really beautiful voice and he has a brilliant connection with Alexandra and gives the duet a real sense of urgency.

Filipe’s mini recital is the most like a normal recital because he does a collection of songs by the same singer, Paolo Tosti. They are all lovely and very emotional and he has a way of drawing you in even before the first note which is very important for a singer. He doesn’t want everyone looking at Tony instead. Tony is 61 but he’s actually really good looking for an old man.

Filipe also sings Dal labbro il canto which is sung by Fenton in Falstaff. Falstaff tends to be more about Falstaff and the women but I think Filipe’s Fenton would totally win the audience over. His performance is really romantic, lucky Nannetta (she’s Fenton’s girlfriend in case you don’t know, she’s called Anne in the Shakespeare play it’s based on, The Merry Wives of Windsor.) The audience members who are attracted to men would love him but even though he’s gorgeous he’s very modest and his Fenton is very sweet so the people who aren’t attracted to men wouldn’t see him as too much of a threat.

Then of course he closes the concert with the West Side Story duet. I think of the role of Tony as being a baritenor, the tessitura is somewhere between a baritone and a tenor and a lot of opera singers wouldn’t quite be comfortable with it but Filipe sings it very beautifully and ardently and he makes it work.

It’s a very good concert and a great idea but it would be really lovely if the Royal Opera could perform an actual opera. There are a few one-act operas with a small cast like Rita by Donizetti, the two versions of La serva padrona by Pergolesi and Paisiello, Il segreto di Susanna by Wolf-Ferrari, The Telephone by Menotti (though Scottish Opera have already done that in lockdown), Bastien und Bastienne by Mozart and Djamileh by Bizet. It could either be a concert performance or a socially distant production. Just an idea.

This is a great concert and it’s only £3 so if you like opera watch it and if you don’t like opera watch it anyway, it’s not exactly going to bankrupt you.