Sir, I found the headline "Singing at its best in Puccini" for John Allen's review (May 4th) of Barra O'Tuama's opera gala concert (May 2nd) very misleading. It led me to believe that Mr Allen had enjoyed the concert as much as I and the audience at the National Concert Hall had. Not so! He was dissatisfied with Jose Cura's intonation and phrasing, but was more concerned with "his over the top histrionics, which ran the gamut from embarrassing to risible", and which Mr Allen deemed to be "entirely out of place Mr Cura clearly knew the stories of the operas from which he was performing extracts, and conveyed in vocal expression as well as his actions the characters the composers had portrayed in their music. Indeed I felt that Mr Cura inspired Virginia Kerr, a singer I admire greatly, but who can be somewhat reserved in concert, to give a more relaxed and communicative performance, akin to her best work in the theatre. Occasional intonational flaws are a hazard of live performance, Mr Cura and many great and even many lesser artists are forgiven for the emotional responses their overall performance evokes.
I thought it was the policy of your newspaper that music critics not review encore items, as these are not part of the prepared and advertised programme, yet Mr Allen found that ..... his best singing was heard in music by Puccini in arias from Tosca, Manon Lescaut and La Fanciulla del West.. ." Your critic sat through a performance he evidently found inappropriately histrionic and unmusical in matters of phrasing and intonation and a very long ovation for Mr Cura and Ms Kerr from a satisfied audience to hear and review the aria from Manon Lescaut which Mr Cura sang as an encore? In the interests of balanced reporting, may I point out that he must therefore have seen, yet failed to mention, the standing ovation given the artists a by the audience? This would never have happened in the days of Charles Acton, who, however much a performance was not to his personal taste, always noted that the audience differed from him in their appreciation, and never, to my knowledge, reviewed an encore, though I often saw him stay to listen to them.
Can you please explain is Mr Allen a victim of the editorial pen, or have standards of musical reportage fallen so badly? Yours, etc., Marino, Dublin 3.