It was a steaming hot night in Central Park Tuesday, steamy but lovely , and it didn’t keep opera fans, indeed, music fans away from Summerstage. Loving couples held hands under the stars, older denizens of Gotham sat and watched in rapt attention, the sun had set but the night was still young and the sky was a deep blue, and the fifth annual performance of arias and duets for free, in the open air, by the finest young singers in the country, and Soprano Erin Morley was about to steal the evening from under mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard
Till now, mid-way through the second half the evening had belonged to native New York Leonard, whose quirky, charming personality and the sheer warmth of her voice had made her the center of attention. But suddenly, Erin came into her own with an astounding version of Offenbach’s “Les Oiseaux Dans La Charmille” from “The Tales Of Hoffman”. The arias is beautiful but difficult. Hoffman wears magic glasses which makes a doll appear human (it is also known as “The Doll Song”) but the doll keeps on winding down. Erin runs up and down the scales, before sputtering as she wound down and having to be rewound before she starts again. It could be something of an exercise in dexterity, it is so difficult, so easy to miss a note or flatten it, but Erin is like the bird of the title. And the audience lap it up.
Still, after 2012’s superb performance, 2013 is a little bit of a let down. What we get is a Mezzo, a Mezzo Soprano, and Stephen Costello’s Tenor -a singer Pam Kraken of the North County Times said “a lovely, ringing tenor with a pleasing top, clarity, evenness of tone and warm romantic sound.” And really, in keeping with everybody on stage, including accompanist Bradley Moore, a superb pianist, what came through was a strength of character of performance.
But the evening needed a deeper voice, a baritone or a bass. In the past we’ve heard Baritone Paolo Szot, who you might remember for “South Pacific” and just last year we had bass-baritone John Del Carlo, whose bravado “The Elixir Of Love”, sharing the stage with his two co-stars. is not equaled tonight. This year we get a soprano, a mezzo soprano and a tenor and it could have used something a little, well deeper.
The first three arias of the evening are too quiet for an over warmed audience and it takes Stephen Costello’s Donizetti to wake the audience up; his voice filled with power and full of character Costello creams it, and indeed, the last song before the intermission, also Donizetti, a pas de deux from “Lucia di Lammermoor”, is the best singing of the evening, at over ten minutes in length it gave the duo the time to develop the melody to its natural conclusion.
But if there was a star Tuesday night it was Isabel. The local girl made good was not merely lovely but also a fine actress capable of bringing to life teenage love and romantic heartbreak. She is a natural comedian as well with a lightness on her feet (when not tripping over them) which belies the soap operairness of opera. A captivating figure on stage, her next performance is as Dorabellain in Cosi Fan Tutti at the Met.
The three Bernstein-Sondheim songs that concluded the evening were lovely and the two sopranos at the encore, were both first rate and absolutely, this is a fine way to get some really beautiful music in your life. If there is anything lovelier than “One Hand, One Heart” in a midsummer’s night, on the west side of this story, it is hard to imagine what it is.
Grade: B+
