Contrasting Commentaries on Eternity: Lise Davidsen and Freddie De Tommaso in Recital at Barbican Centre
The soprano and the tenor made for a discrepant duo in an evening draped in relishable repertoire.
James Baillieu plays Lehár’s Merry Widow waltz as Freddie De Tommaso and Lise Davidsen dance. Credit: Mark Allan/Barbican
Blissful lissome silhouettes could whet artistic appetites with ease eons ago, oblivious to partially blind tastes. Luxuriating in the rarity of scenic splendour, patrons unbeknownst to them preserved their pleasurable experience by lacking points of reference. No supplementary performances awaited them at home on discs or video or MP3 files – making theatre and the concert hall delectably selectively available.
Faux fur could not have forged superior simulacrums to the testy tenor whose falsettos went unnoticed – or whose high C’s went uncompared to those of Beniamino Gigli; able to beguile unbiased onlookers.
Not so are living artists: trapped descendants constantly contending with subconscious cravings to transform renditions into metatextual musings on the masters of times past: so past they’re reachable by phone in every interval.
Through this lens lyric rapture seems uncapturable; the scales forever tipped too far in favour of lost legends.
Generating an ingenious gift that renders such a dual obsolete, the voice of Lise Davidsen storms through the strata of stars’ ghosts with a stentorian tread; triumphantly erasing this unspoken contest.
Titanic is the magnitude and range of the soprano’s instrument: a shimmer-strengthened voice whose unreceding resonance flows as unflaggingly as Alpine mist. As she let loose Tannhäuser’s juggernaut “Dich teure Halle” Davidsen’s diminuendi mitigated volume with the timid melt of mountains’ slipping sleet; extinguishing the notes till they were precious tincts of music.
Mellifluously limning heroine Amelia of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, Davidsen endowed the mournful mother with the diffident despair of doomed, illicit love; enveloping the cry “Mi lascia!” (“Leave me!”) in a hybrid of unbridled self-hate and surrender in “Teco io sto”. Celestial heights shook at her piercing proclamation as she self-destructively revealed “Sì – t’amo!” to Riccardo (“Yes – I love you!”) whilst conflicting with her conscience.
Pleading with her vengeful husband to allow her one last moment with her son, Amelia sustained humility before her shrinking spirit as the singer steadied “Del mio materno cor” (“Of a mother’s heart”); curtailing courage to appear subdued before her would-be killer. A choice upward arpeggio was supplied “fugaci” (“fleeting”) in the phrase “Dell’ore mie fugaci” (“Of my fleeting hours”); letting the lugubrious supplicant succumb to paralysing pain.
Quivering as querulously as a flexing flame at odds with drafts in cavemen’s hovels, Davidsen’s insuperable soprano made “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s Otello the prevailing prayer of manifold millennia. Wrenched out of its constraining context, the entreaty treated words like “Sotto la malvagia sorte” (“[pray for those who] bow their heads beneath cruel destiny”) with universal sorrow; liberating them from Shakespeare’s shackles to embrace the baneful fates of homosapiens who suffered long before The Bard.
Quibbling almost with the artist’s cinematic mien, Davidsen’s partner for the evening - tenor Freddie De Tommaso - brought an instrument of partly equal measure fraught with missteps. Embroidered by ebullient vibrato, the musician’s vocal sinews showcase limitlessness in their size but come out frequently misshapen; oozing forte zeal in subtle parts and deference where explosions are expected.
Components that could furnish any role are comfortably ensconced in his colossal range yet used occasionally inappropriately. In the duet “Teco io sto” the tenor favoured feverish crescendo beautifully in “Io – lasciarti? No – giammai!” (“For me to leave you? No – never!”) but accompanied successive notes with a slight choking sound that harkened back to popular effects heard at La Scala in the fifties. The style that De Tommaso chooses – swallowing a note as though his character is floored by passion; sometimes pushing his vibrato to pulse shatteringly – works well in moderation but he uses it haphazardly; endangering aesthetic prowess with his excess effort.
“Cielo pietoso, rendila” (“Merciful heaven, bring her back”) from Verdi’s I Lombardi offered crests of gradual crescendo in “a questo core” (“to this heart”) but staggered “ch’io non la vegga più” (“that I may never see her”) with a strident accent. Similarly, while “Amor ti vieta” (“Love forbids you”) from Giordano’s Fedora was dealt the hero’s amorous aplomb, “La man” (“Your hand”) turned out a tremulous high E that flared as freely as a washing line’s loose linen in harsh wind.
Solemnity was lent to “Il lamento di Federico” (“Federico’s lament”) from Cilea’s L’arlesiana; solidifying “E s’addormi” (“but he fell asleep”) with ominous diminuendo. But “scordar” (“to forget”) was sunk into near-silence; overemphasising and synchronically undoing sombreness.
Pianist James Baillieu’s craftsmanship was likewise dwarfed by the Wagnerian soprano at his side. Extending chords with choppy pacing, Baillieu flattened the arpeggios in “Morrò, ma prima in grazia”; expelling their pained offshoots with staid sameness. Programmed melodies emerged in the ubiquitously famous “Core ‘ngrato”; winnowing the winsome song down to an anodyne harmonious collective.
A similar phenomenon occurred in The Queen of Spades’ “Uzh polnoch’ blizitsya” (“But midnight is near”), in which the instrumentalist displayed Tchaikovsky’s motley cohort with a unilateral set of sentiments. Davidsen approached her Liza with nostalgic vernal longing; varnishing “Ustala ya” (“I’m tired”) in “Akh! istomilas ya gorem!” (“Ah! I am taunted by woe!”) with an exquisite, juvenile self-pity. Although “t”s were at times omitted at the climaxes of her infinitives the vocalist’s performance proffered vulnerability enrobed in helpnessness at dreaminess’s mercy.
De Tommaso’s highlights came in his renditions of Italian songs by Paolo Tosti. Presenting “L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra” (“The dawn divides the darkness from the light”) with an inconquerable resolve, the tenor’s sympathetically restrained reflection on death’s nearness wrapped the ode in dire resignation. In “Non t’amo più” (“I no longer love you”) the “t’amo più” was well supported in its arduous extension but superfluously long.
As much at home in “Vissi d’arte” as “I could have danced all night”, Lise Davidsen embodied music’s majesty in a display that proved few memories can top the might of live performance. At the same time Freddie De Tommaso called on other perpetuities; revivifying quaint quirks held by long-gone tenors in a tribute démodé: an overdusty vintage. Reconsidering his use of such characteristics would improve his artistry immensely.
And so the evening laid bare lofty feats: the first a victory over the giants in whose shadows all sopranos live, the second a reminder of some foibles’ reticence to fade. It was a concert set in parallel dimensions: worlds unwittingly at odds.
This recital formed part of Lise Davidsen’s Artist Spotlight at Barbican Centre. She will also appear with the Oslo Philharmonic under the baton of Klaus Mäkelä this Friday, 3rd June.