This review of Frau Kasarova's November 25th concert at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam is courtesy of Mr John Carnegie. Thanks, John!
VESSELINA
KASAROVA + HANSJÖRG ALBRECHT
AT THE MUZIEKGEBOUW, AMSTERDAM
ON 25TH NOVEMBER 2014
A couple of weeks previously, VK had made
unscheduled appearances in Amsterdam substituting for Elina Garanca at the
Concertgebouw. Now she was appearing in
the city in her own right at the Concert Hall of the 21st Century at
the Muziekgebouw in recital with Hansjörg Albrecht at the piano.
I had not been in Amsterdam for nearly
three decades. So I decided to take the
opportunity of combining the invitation to run theatre workshops there with the
chance to catch VK in concert. I had
often experienced her performing live in operas but this was the first time I
had ever encountered her in a recital with piano.
The Muziekgebouw is a modern
wooden-slat-lined concert hall with moveable walls designed to vary the
capacity of the audience and the size of the stage. Such is the popularity of VK in Amsterdam
that the walls were out to their maximum width and there was a near-capacity
audience.
A pre-concert recital with two young
artists near the beginning of their careers (an admirable tradition over here)
revealed that the hall’s acoustics favour the piano over the voice. Fortunately, when it came to the main
concert, Herr Albrecht was such a sensitive collaborator than he managed to
maintain a reasonable balance for much of the time without VK having to strain
to be heard over him.
The programme was in two parts. The first half consisted of Wagner’s Wesendonck
Lieder. It did not start well. VK was visibly nervous and inadequately
warmed-up. In the first song, Der
Engel, her increasing evident vocal problem of an obtrusive in breath was
worse than I had ever heard it and consonants were swallowed. Things considerably improved from Stehe
still! Onwards but there were still problems – such as the occasional
misjudging of pianissimo as inaudibility (and I was sitting in the front row so
it would have been worse for those behind me). Still, although this Wagner set represented VK at the least effective I
have ever heard her live, it was still overall a passable performance.
After the interval, an under whelming
opening Villanelle from Berlioz’ Les nuits d’été seemed to
presage a return to the vocal problems of the beginning of the recital. However, from the beginning of Sur les
lagunes (the third song of the cycle), as if by magic everything suddenly
clicked into gear and VK was firing on all cylinders to produce a consumate
performance that continued through to the end. The sense of mounting satisfaction in the audience was
self-evident. At the end, they exploded
into a frenzy of applause and, from most, a standing ovation. (Mind you, a week of theatre and concerts in
Amsterdam had accustomed me to the sad fact that the Dutch have caught the
American disease of the automatic and indiscriminate standing ovation. However, here at least, it seemed genuine.)
(Video is not from this performance)
VK rewarded the audience with two
electrifying Handel encores: Ombra mai fu and Verdi Prati – both
delivered for the first time in this recital without a score in front of
her. Such direct and consummate
communication topped an evening that had an unpromising start but ended up as a
triumph.
.JPG)
