Meet the Young Artists Week, Linbury Theatre and online, review: a rewarding chance to spot the stars of tomorrow
With so many young musicians tragically losing their livelihoods as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s heartening to turn briefly to a happy few who are being sheltered by the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker scheme. Sponsored since 2001 by the wife of the businessman-philanthropist Alan Parker and his Oak Foundation, this is a two-year course that annually takes in a dozen or so singers, pianists and stage directors new to the profession and gives them further training and a variety of performing opportunities across the stages of Covent Garden.
The past roll call of alumni who have gone on to glory include such British luminaries as Sally Matthews, David Butt Philip. Robert Murray and Matthew Rose, but admission is open internationally and the scheme’s high repute draws hundreds of candidates from all over the world. Managed by Elaine Kidd and the coach David Gowland (a linch-pin since 2001), it presents an enjoyable week of events every October that allows the public a chance to talent-spot for the stars of tomorrow. And despite the current restrictions, this autumn’s showcase has gone ahead, though most of the concerts have perforce been available online only.
One short recital did take place live in the Linbury Theatre, but it was faintly disappointing and not just because of the social distancing and Spartan atmosphere. Three of the current crop of singers – British soprano Alexandra Lowe. Uruguayan Andrés Presno and Congolese bass Blaise Malaba faced the acid test of singing French mélodies and found themselves uncomfortable with its evasive subtleties and intonations. At a purely technical level, Malaba made a fair stab at the slow legato demanded by Fauré’s Les Berceaux, but Presno struggled to convey the “luxe, calme et volupté” of Duparc’s gorgeously perfumed L’Invitation au voyage.
Lowe and Presno were more at ease with Richard Strauss’s rapturous Epheu and Liszt’s setting of a Petrarch sonnet Pace, non trovo respectively, but the temperature rose only with the appearance of the Ukrainian mezzo-soprano Ksenia Nikolaieva. Blessed with an imposingly large and fruitily resonant voice that reminded me of those awesome Russian contraltos of the old school such as Irina Arkhipova and Elena Obraztsova, she flung herself into songs by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky (including the chestnut None but the Lonely Heart) to the manner born. David Gowland was the admirable pianist throughout.
Much more fun is to be had online, where I recommend three short films shot in the Royal Opera House’s Paul Hamlyn Hall. Alexandra Lowe is much more in her element with Poulenc’s La Dame de Monte Carlo, a touching monologue with a text by Jean Cocteau in which a blowsy old courtesan addicted to the roulette wheel reaches the end of the road.
The South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha reveals an exuberant gift for comedy in Jake Heggie’s Sondheimish take on the agonies of a blind date in At the Statue of Venus. British mezzo-soprano Stephanie Wake-Edwards has been lumbered with an unconvincingly updated context for Haydn’s cantata Arianna a Naxos, but she paints the conflicting emotions of an abandoned woman in vivid colours.
Further concerts by all these promising singers, joined by the ebullient Tongan tenor Filipe Manu, continue until Saturday, streamed via the Royal Opera House’s YouTube channel and Facebook pages. They will be well worth sampling.
