Intriguingly entitled “Exotic Storytellers”, this Ulster Orchestra concert paired Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte and Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été in the first half, followed by the Rimsky-Korsakov's whimsical Scheherazade. Under the empathetic leadership of the orchestra’s associate conductor Jac van Steen, the Ulster Orchestra and Irish mezzo soprano Rachel Kelly delivered spirited and well-rounded performances of this highly evocative programme. Ravel’s elegiac Pavane is suitably restrained in the orchestra’s interpretation, which succeeds in maintaining the tension throughout the long melodic lines of the piece’s recurring theme. The wind section in particular, one of the orchestra’s strengths, excels in emphasising the intimate tone of the work’s lucid structure as the theme emerges in the oboe subsequent to its introduction by the horn.
Berlioz’s song cycle Les nuits d’été, which is understood to have been inspired by the composer’s increasing estrangement from his first wife, comprises six poems (by Théophile Gautier) set to music, with each capturing a different mood corresponding to the text. Rachel Kelly is a recent graduate from the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artist Programme. Her operatic background became immediately apparent in her ability to imbue each poem with a sense of narrative and dramatic development. Her bright soprano has crystalline clarity and sparkled in the higher ranges of Villanelle's light-footed and playful celebration of spring. Le spectre de la rose, a tale of a withered rose’s ghost, opens with a tender cantilena in the woodwinds, set against gently murmuring strings. Kelly’s sensitive phrasing captured the subtle changes in atmosphere, which oscillates between tender reminiscences and the foreboding of impending loss and pain. Berlioz’s mastery of emotive orchestration comes to the fore in the lament of Sur les lagunes, in which a sailor mourns the death of his beloved. Brooding strings set the mood of this song, whose respective stanzas culminate in an agitated cry of despair, followed by a descending scale extending the vocal line and mirroring the crushing waves of the wild sea. After the eerie Au cimetière: Clair de lune, with its high-pitched whirrs in the violins enhancing the ghostly atmosphere, the piece draws to conclusion with the rousing L'île inconnue, which evokes the image of a utopian island where eternal love is attainable. This fine rendition benefited greatly from Jac van Steen’s experience with conducting opera, which not only enabled him to respond immediately to Kelly’s subtle rubati but also allowed him to balance the orchestra’s sound perfectly against this young singer’s voice.