VESSELINA KASAROVA AT THE KONZERTHAUS IN BERLIN
ON 28TH MAY 2017
A year after the last time that Vesselina Kasarova’s schedule and
mine last coincided, I was fortunate enough to be in Berlin when she was
appearing in series of concerts at the prestigious Konzerthaus. This is an excellent venue with good
sight-lines, resplendent décor and (most importantly) superb acoustics.
Appearing alongside the venue’s own orchestra (a top flight band),
VK featured in two performances of a full length concert of Haydn (cantata and
symphony) and Saint-Saëns (aria and symphony) – plus a shorter morning concert
for family audiences in which the Haydn items were featured alongside a Mozart
aria. I managed to catch this morning
concert and the repeat performance of the full length concert later the same
day.
The morning
concert was part of a long-standing tradition at the Konzerthaus entitled Mozart-Matinee in which parts of the full-length
concert on at the time are combined with something by Mozart to form an
hour-long event to which concertgoers are encouraged to bring their children
and grandchildren. The presentation is
very informal with spoken introductions to each item and onstage interviews
with the conductor and soloists. Most of
the many children in the audience were very well behaved and attentive. The only exception was a young boy with a
clear case of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder who was sitting a few
seats along from me in the front row. VK
charmingly managed to calm him down during her interview by including him in
the conversation. Thereafter he was
putty in her hands and sat entranced and alert.
VK opened the
proceedings with Haydn’s cantata Ariadne
auf Naxos. Dressed in a simple black
jump suit but with a resplendent pair of earrings (more about those later), she
was given an exceptionally large area between the conductor and the first
violins in which to perform – and perform she certainly did. This was no standard-issue concert
performance of just the notes. Prowling
around her allotted space like a caged tiger, VK gave a full-on operatic
rendition of Ariadne’s passion and grief that proved totally involving for the
audience. (There was scarcely a cough to
be heard from them throughout.) However,
it was not just the theatrics that were enthralling. Vocally, VK was in as fine as condition as
I’ve ever heard her. There was not a
trace of the problems that have occasionally marred her performances in recent
years. This was VK at the top of her
game and she produced some thrilling singing.
She followed the
Haydn with an aria from Mozart’s La
clemenza di Tito – not one from her usual character of Sesto but the Non più di fiori of Vitellia. Again this was a superb rendition that was
enhanced by something that could have wrecked its effect but which VK took
completely in her stride. Halfway
through the aria, one of her earrings disengaged itself and fell to the floor. Unfazed, VK whipped off the other earring and
then scooped up the fallen one from the floor – all within a few notes and
while maintaining character and vocal production. It was an excellent example of her innate
stage craft (and also the reason why the earrings do not appear in the
photograph of her curtain call above).
Later
in the day, VK reappeared on the same stage for the full-length concert –
dressed in the flaming red ball gown that features on the cover of her Russian Arias CD. (No earrings this time – presumably so as to
forfend against any further malfunction!) She repeated the Haydn cantata to equal effect and later gave her
familiar rendition of Dalila’s Mon Coeur
from Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila. Although the latter was more of a challenge
for VK with her having to contend against a greatly expanded orchestra that she
is more used to having down in the pit of an opera house for this aria, both
offerings went down a treat with the audience and they gave her sustained
applause.
For both concerts, conductor Jean-Christophe Spinosi proved to be a
sympathetic accompanist and he came into his own with his witty rendition of
Haydn’s Symphony No. 82 (with its multiple false endings designed to provoke
premature applause) and his mastery of the huge forces involved in Saint-Saëns’
Organ Symphony.
All in all, this was a thoroughly satisfying double helping of VK’s
artistry.
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