If Giacomo Puccini was alive today, he’d sell millions of discs, be a regular on chat shows and rightly be lauded as a superstar.
At the time of his death in 1924, he had become the most commercially successful opera composer of all time, worth the equivalent of an estimated $200 million.
His operas, some of which are familiar household names, have earned him legendary status and the roles he created within them have been performed over the decades by the world’s top singers.
Inspired by Verdi
Funnily enough, he discovered his calling as an opera composer by attending a performance Aida, one of the masterpieces of his fellow Italian – and fellow operatic giant – Guiseppe Verdi.
Very seldom do you find an evening of opera devoted exclusively to one man. Scottish Opera weren’t afraid to reverse that trend and concentrate on one operatic great.
Their Puccini Collection, performed on Sunday in the Caird Hall with four soloists and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, was the prefect tribute to a man whose melodies are to die for.
The one good thing about devoting an evening to one man is that while his well-known arias are an obvious inclusion, so are those from his lesser-known, seldom-performed operas.
Thus, you have Tosca, Turandot and La Boheme mixing with La Fanciulla del West, Manon Lescaut and Edgar, pleasing both newcomers to opera and aficionados alike.
But this wasn’t any run-of-the-mill night at the opera. If it had been a medley of arias out of context then the evening might have had a rather mundane manner.
All the drama and intensity
Instead, to take full-blown excerpts from operas that generated interaction from the soloists, all the drama, intensity and passion were captured to the full.
There were some moments of operatic magic that simply blew you away. The Act III quartet from La Boheme being a prime example.
The soloists – sopranos Sinead Campbell-Wallace and Catriona Hewison, bass Roland Wood and tenor David Junghoon Kim – really seized the opportunity to make this an evening to remember.
Superb delivery of Tosca’s Vissi D’arte
Kim set the bench-mark pretty high with his opening aria from Manon Lescaut, but the others simply carried on where he left off, Sinead especially.
Have I heard a better delivery of Tosca’s Vissi D’arte? Probably not, but that was just one instance of a soprano in peak form.
Kim was perfection from start to finish, with his fantastic Nessun Dorma a fitting end to a marvellous concert.
Add to that the splendid Roland Wood – who excelled in that operatic rarity, a baritone aria, courtesy of the little-known opera Edgar – and Catriona Hewison’s excellent aria from La Rondine, this was a quartet of real quality.
The orchestra shone too
Vocal excellence apart, where would operatic soloists be without the support of an excellent orchestra?
Well, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera under Stuart Stratford epitomised everything that is good about operatic accompaniment, providing excellent support for the soloists and starring in their own right in instrumental excerpts from Manon Lescaut and La Villi.
It would be wonderful to think this evening was a prelude to Scottish Opera appearing in Dundee on a regular basis. Well, one can only hope.
