National Concert Hall, Dublin
It has been said of the American opera sensation Danielle de Niese that, with her around, “not much else matters”. The remarkable thing about her Irish debut, with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra last Friday, was that the whole performance, and not just the star attraction, mattered very much indeed.
Not that de Niese could be accused of underselling herself. From the wrist-spiralling allurements of Delibes’s hot-blooded bolero Les Filles de Cadix to the heart-rending plea of Puccini’s O Mio Babbino Caro, the dramatis personae succeeded one another with utterly intuitive extroversion. Still, the presence of a precautionary music stand was hard to ignore, and communications flowed most freely when, in Norina’s cavatina from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, de Niese cast her score aside.
Handel’s Let the Bright Seraphim, which had opened the programme, made it clear that actions were going to speak louder than words. This was the only English-texted item, and it established a principle that diction would follow voice production rather than vice versa. (De Niese had evidently plotted this piece in close collaboration with the RTÉCO trumpeter Shaun Hooke, whose keen-edged obbligato playing earned its share of the plaudits.)
In the ensuing excursion into the highways and byways of the pre-Verdian soprano repertory (Di Piacer Mi Balza il Cor from Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra and Quel Nocchier Che in Gran Procella from Mozart’s oratorio La Betulia Liberata) de Niese proved that her bunch of keys to operatic stardom isn’t lacking an enviable technique or tonal quality that’s above criticism.
All this seemed to rub off on the orchestra under its regular guest conductor Neil Thomson; they collectively dispatched the accompaniments with versatile stylistic aplomb and ensured that their own four numbers, by Mozart, Gluck, de Falla and Donizetti, were immeasurably more than programme fillers.
