Operatic hopefuls far from the finished article
Operalia
Royal Opera House
★★ ★★★
Alongside BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, Operalia is globally considered the most prestigious and significant competition for aspiring opera stars, boasting past winners including Rolando Villazon, Joyce DiDonato, Erwin Schrott and Nina Stemme.
Established in 1993 by Placido Domingo, who still actively supervises, it changes base annually – this summer it has landed for the first time at Covent Garden. Cash prizes are substantial, and Rolex is the chief munificent sponsor for what must be an expensive business.
The 11 finalists here were on average 25 to 27, younger than their equivalents at Cardiff and far from the finished article. I imagine they are assessed on their performance through all the eliminating rounds, but allowing them only one aria in which to display their talents before an audience seems an unfair test, not least as the Korean was bafflingly permitted the entire Mad Scene from
Lucia di Lammermoor, while others were on stage for barely five minutes. Everything sung was composed between 1816 and 1867, and nobody chose anything except familiar warhorses. Two American baritones, neither special, gave almost identical performances of Largo al factotum from Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Yawn.
So, given the enormous amount of applauding, speechifying and kowtowing to Saint Placido that padded out the prolix proceedings, this wasn’t the most thrilling of occasions. As usual, I grumpily disagreed with the verdicts of an illbalanced jury, consisting of 12 male bigwigs and two women, one of them Domingo’s wife Marta.
In the manner of Lewis Carroll’s caucus race, everyone seemed to get prizes – except my favourite, Andrea Carroll, a warmly musical soprano who reminded me happily of Victoria de los Angeles when she sang zarzuela.
The first prize for a woman went to Lise Davidsen, a strapping Norwegian lass, who gave a strikingly bold reading of Dich, teure Halle from
Tannhäuser; the runner-up was the simpering Korean Hyesang Park, who I found efficient, neat and pretty but rather generic in her interpretation of Lucia’s dementia.
The men’s laurel went to a breezily self-confident Romanian, Ioan Hotea, swinging merrily on the high trapeze of Tonio’s aria from La Fille du
régiment. The Audience Prize (a Rolex watch!) went to his runner-up, the endearing Samoan, Darren Pene Pati, who has the makings of a first-class instrument, sweet and full in timbre, deployed ardently in Edgardo’s aria from Lucia. But nobody set my spine tingling.