The National Symphony Orchestra opened its new season on Friday night with a concert in aid of the Chernobyl Children's Project, presented in association with AIB. The orchestra's principal conductor, Alexander Anissimov, has a long association with the Belarussian capital, Minsk, where he has been music director of the opera for nearly 20 years, and one of the evening's soloists, Russian soprano Victoria Kurbatskaya, has been a member of the opera company since 1991.
The long first half of the "Symphony for Chernobyl" concert was devoted to excerpts from works for the stage, opening with the rather kitschy Adagio from Evgeny Glebov's ballet, The Little Prince, and then focusing on operas by Tchaikovsky, Donizetti, Mozart, Verdi, Rossini, Puccini and Gershwin, with some unannounced amendments (one cut and one addition) to the printed programme along the way.
Kurbatskaya is a singer of lively presence and upbeat personality. She doesn't so much perform an aria as commandeer it, moulding its musical shape (and the sounds of its original words) in a highly idiosyncratic manner. She offers, then, what you might call a prima donna-ish show. And she has the vocal re sources to make the distortions of her point of view compelling - at least for the moment of performance. I'm not at all sure how well the style, finely finished though it is, would survive more intimate acquaintance.
Sadly, Ms Kurbatskaya was not heard in any Russian repertoire, though her partner for the evening, the Jamaican bass baritone, Willard White, was. His voice may have roughened with time, but his dramatic presence is still strong. "Ella giammai m'amo" from Verdi's Don Carlo was darkly impressive, and he carried off the excerpts from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with a touch that was both light and penetrating.
Anissimov's handling of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony after the interval essayed that breadth of perspective which he has pursued with such conspicuous success in Rachmaninov. His vision in the Tchaikovsky seemed less keen, only the first movement holding together really well without loss of tension.
Too often, elsewhere, the playing of the NSO simply hadn't the sustenance of line or the responsiveness of balance to deliver what the conductor seemed to be asking for.
