The great curiosity at the second of the National Symphony Orchestra's operatic programmes last Friday was Alfred Boe. This young British tenor won the John McCormack Golden Voice of Athlone Competition earlier this year and was making his Dublin debut. But the star of the evening was Dublin mezzo Alison Browner, a singer all too rarely heard in her native land.
Her "Una voce poco fa" from Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia was impish, quicksilver in fioritura and refreshingly clear of the cliches of traditional practice. Her "Par to, parto" from Mozart's La clemenza di Tito was intriguingly touched with vulnerability, and in duet with soprano Lynda Lee (in "Prendero quel brunettino" from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte) she showed a lovely lightness of Mozartean manner. Lynda Lee essayed Wagner and Mascagni without penetrating the idiom of either; it was in Mozart that she was heard at her best, in a resolute "Come scoglio" (Cosi fan tutte), the manner stylish, the voice firm at either extreme of the range.
Alfred Boe tackled Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Puccini, the voice appealing and the potential at all times manifest. But it was only in the Italian music ("Recondita armonia" from Tosca and the duet "O Mimi, tu piu non torni" from La boheme, with baritone Mark Holland) that the latent thrill factor was fully delivered on. In his "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's Barbiere, Holland offered singing of coarsish cut and loosish finish (and I couldn't help wondering if the comic effect of standing on his toes for the high notes was intentional or not). His Wagner ("O du mein holder Abend stern" from Tannhauser) was weak, and, as with Boe, it was in the Italian repertoire (which included the Prologue from Leoncavallo's Pagliacci) that this singer sounded most comfortable and idiomatic.
Proinnsias O Duinn was an attentive partner on the podium. With the violins sounding in particularly fine form, as they usually do when Elaine Clarke sits in the leader's chair, he led the orchestra in spirited and pointed performances of overtures by Nicolai, Lalo and Weber and the Polonaise from Tchai kovsky's Eugene Onegin.
