Eleanor
Lyons and Vladimir Fanshil at Wesley Music Centre – 26th September
2020
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens.
To
paraphrase the familiar proverb “It’s an ill-wind that doesn’t blow somebody
some good”. In this case it was Canberra music lovers who benefited, as a
direct result of Covid-19, from two sold-out performances by soprano Eleanor
Lyons and pianist, Vladimir Fanshil.
Though both
are Australians, the husband and wife now live in Vienna, where they are
forging International careers; hers in opera and his as a conductor.
Earlier this
year, together with their small daughter, they travelled to Australia for Lyons
to fulfil a long-held ambition to make her Opera Australia debut in the Sydney
Opera House, as Donna Anna in “Don Giovanni”. As well as her highly acclaimed operatic
performances , Lyons also performed 13
concerts for Opera Australia, completing these just weeks before Covid-19
struck.
Fanshil had
returned to Europe, ahead of his wife, to fulfil an engagement to conduct a
concert for the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Turkey, and prepare for the
launch of the Odessa Festival Orchestra, which he founded in 2019, at the
inaugural 2020 Beethoven Festival in Odessa.
Lyons had
planned to join him, with their daughter, as soon as her Opera Australia
commitments were completed, as she also had a string of important engagements
in Europe to undertake.
As the pandemic
began to take hold in Europe, opera houses and theatres closed resulting in
cancelled engagements for both artists, and when the Beethoven Festival was
cancelled, Fanshil made the decision to return to Australia to be with his wife
and daughter, and the young family
founded itself stranded in Sydney.
But rather
than being daunted by their predicament, Lyons and Fanshil, taking inspiration
from such illustrious predecessors as Melba, Sutherland and Bronhill, who took
their music to the people, hit on the idea of presenting intimate micro-concerts
in private homes reminiscent of salon concerts of old, and as news spread,
found themselves on tour with concerts scheduled in homes and venues in Sydney,
Canberra, Armidale, Yass, Griffith, Wagga Wagga, Merimbula and Orange.
Their
program, as presented in the Wesley Music Centre, offers an eclectic mix of
operatic arias and rarely heard art songs, presented with an engaging lack of
formality, with the artists taking turns introducing each item.
Wearing a
glamorous full length silver sequin gown, Lyons immediately captured the
attention of the audience, entering from the back of the room, with a sparkling
rendition of Musetta’s Waltz from “La Boheme”, for which Fanshil obligingly
contributed some short tenor passages. She continued with two lovely pieces by
an obscure Russian composer, Reinhold Gliere, which Fanshil assured the
audience were the best moments of a rather long obscure opera.
As the
concert progressed it became obvious that Fanshil, in addition to his obvious
keyboard talents, was also an engaging raconteur, as well as a poet,
affectingly setting the mood for each of the arresting five Grieg songs, which
concluded the program, with a short poem.
Demonstrating
enviable acting skills as well as vocal artistry, Lyons offered a carefully
nuanced interpretation of Puccini’s over-familiar “O Mio babbino caro”,
followed by a lush wordless composition, specially written for the pair by
Elena Kats-Chernin, which gave the recital its title, “Wandering Hearts”, before
treating the audience to another aria, this time Francesco Cilia’s lesser known
“lo son l’umile ancella” from his opera “Adriana Lecouvreur”.
Having
already demonstrated his skills as an attentive accompanist, Fanshil delighted
with his solo, a thoughtfully shaped interpretation of the demanding
Rachmaninoff “Elegie", op.3”, following which Lyons re-joined him for a
delightfully effervescent rendition of Rachmaninoff’s “Spring Waters”.
A sublime
“Morgen, op 27 no. 4”, by Richard Strauss, preceded the afore-mentioned five
Grieg songs which brought the recital to a very satisfying conclusion. But wait
there’s more – the encore - for which Lyons, as if expressing her defiance of
Covid-19, electrified the audience by unleashing the full power of her voice in
a thrilling rendition of Verdi’s “Sempre Libera” (Always Free) from “La
Traviata”.
This
opportunity to see two world class artists, at the peak of their careers, in
such intimate surroundings was something that few, who were lucky enough to experience
it, are likely to forget.
This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 27th September 2020.
