“Get thee hence from the ghetto of Italian Opera!” Professor Roger Parker nearly exhorted us in his excellent talk prior to this fourth concert in Opera Rara’s “Donizetti & Friends” series. His point was to encourage us to broaden our perspective on a composer so intricately linked to the high point of bel canto and consider him in the wider European musical context – as a peer of Berlioz, with whom he was paired in this concert; as a cosmopolitan composer aware of wider musical trends; and as a musician as at home in a Parisian salon as in a Neapolitan theatre.
The Cadogan Hall concert, pairing tenor Michael Spyres with contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, ably accompanied by Giulio Zappa, was structured with thought, giving a mix of moods and lengths. Each half commenced with a trio of shorter Donizetti songs followed by some Berlioz sung by one singer, followed by a longer Donizetti song by the other singer, and a duet to conclude. The songs gave ample opportunity for both singers to demonstrate the vocal characteristics for which they have become known. Spyres’ tenor is almost unique in its range and his top’s brightness was on display from the outset in a verdant L’aube naît et ta porte est close, aching with yearning in the refrain of “Ô ma charmante”. Throughout the evening, he showed a constant sense of the text and a palpable feeling of savouring the French language, flipping from sunniness to a bleak Si tu m’as fait à ton image to one of the highlights, the Oh ne me chasse pas, which Spyres packed full of whimsy and melodrama.
Parker had noted the contrast in Donizetti’s writing for piano accompaniment with Berlioz’s and it felt true that, despite Zappa’s sensitive playing, those first three Donizetti songs gave the piano a basic voice when compared to the idiosyncratic sound Berlioz conjures in La Belle Voyageuse and L’Origine de la harpe. Yet in Donizetti’s La Folle de S.te Hélène – the highlight of the evening – Donizetti’s unique facility for orchestration, so often underrated, emerged in the accompaniment – sly, dramatic and exciting. The song is fascinating, an odd fusion of La Fille du régiment in its jaunty martial moments and of any one of Donizetti’s mad scenes. Lemieux inhabited both ends of this spectrum, capturing pioneering mania and morose depression with aplomb. Like Spyres, her every syllable was carefully phrased in a voice of mescal smokiness. Her higher register was secure and generous, blasting out the top notes with cheerful abandon, and her ample lower voice cavernous. The line between salon and opera house began to blur. Her ability to inhabit a range of moods was demonstrated in the highly entertaining Aux filles que l’ennui chagrine, in which she caught the narrative style of a teenage girl praying for a good husband: confessional, intimate and decidedly mischievous, before flicking to a deeply mournful La mort d'Ophélie crowned by a lachrymose gurgle as the water takes the unfortunate Ophelia.
Nowhere was the need to switch character at speed more noticeable than in Spyres’ performance of La Dernière Nuit d'un Novice. Musically I found it less interesting than much of the programme, but it gripped in its requirement for the tenor to switch verse to verse from a young novice to a malign spirit. Spyres captured the different characters magnificently, shading the spirit in saturnine, seductive tones which he pared back to naive innocence for the novice, in a impressive display of characterisation.
After a sublime and gentle duet in Donizetti’s Voici le jour qui va paraître, in which Spyres and Lemieux blended beautifully, an unexpected treat of encore in the form of the finale from Carmen. Vividly accompanied by Zappa – one scarcely missed the full orchestra – this was a visceral performance. This was a thoroughly rewarding evening that, despite Berlioz and Bizet’s best efforts, showcased Donizetti’s fecund facility for the song.
