Art Song Canberra
Louise Page, Soprano
Phillipa Candy, Piano
Caitlin McAnulty, Oboe
Rachel
Best-Allen, Clarinet
Wesley Music Centre, Forrest 22 November
Review by Len Power 22 November 2015
With the theme of 'Dance, Sing, Love, Live!', you would
expect a program of great variety and that's just what Canberra soprano, Louise
Page, gave us in Artsong Canberra's latest Sunday afternoon concert.
Ranging from Canteloube to Delibes, Mahler, Berlioz and
others, the chosen songs gave Louise Page every opportunity to show the full
range and colour of her voice.
Whether singing joyously or with strong emotion, Louise Page
gives full weight to the intent of a song as well as singing every note with
great clarity and precision. The intense
emotion of the opening number, ‘Song Of Happiness’ by Berlioz was perfectly
captured and the well-known ‘Bolero’ from ‘Songs Of the Auvergne’ was sung with
great feeling. By contrast, Delibes’
‘The Girls Of Cadiz’ was delightfully humorous.
The rapture displayed at the end of the Strauss song 'Secret Invitation'
was especially moving as was her singing of a second highly emotional Strauss
song, ‘A Dedication’. The highlight of
the concert was the presentation of songs by Australia’s Calvin Bowman,
especially her delicate singing of the haunting, ‘Words By The Water’.
For an encore, Louise Page delighted us with a flirtatious
and sexy ‘My Kisses Are So Hot’ (with real kisses for some lucky audience
members) from Franz Lehar’s ‘Giuditta’.
The accompaniment on piano by Phillipa Candy was excellent
and there was sublime additional accompaniment by Caitlin McAnulty on oboe and
Rachel Best-Allen on clarinet in the selections from ' Songs of the Auvergne'.
Once again Artsong Canberra provided a perfect afternoon's musical
entertainment.
This review was first published in Canberra City News Digital Edition 23 November 2015.
Len Power’s reviews
can also be heard on Artsound FM’s ‘Artcetera’ program from 9am Saturdays.
