Merlyn Quaife,
soprano
Nicholas Dinopoulos,
bass-baritone
Andrea Katz, piano
Wesley Music Centre,
Forrest 28 August
Review by Len Power
Art Song Canberra’s ‘Lyric Rhapsody’ concert presented three
highly regarded artists in a concert showcasing the music of Johannes Brahms
and Antonin Dvorak with a tribute to William Shakespeare thrown in as well. It was a nicely judged program of music that
worked very well. The singers, Merlyn
Quaife and Nicholas Dinopoulos, were in fine voice and the accompaniment on
piano by Andrea Katz was superb throughout.
The first half of the program comprised ten songs by Brahms.
In solos and duets, the two singers had
every opportunity to display all aspects of their fine voices. Merlyn Quaife’s beautiful soprano voice and
moving delivery of the ‘Lullaby’ was one of the highlights of this set of songs. Not only was it sung technically very well
but, through her body language and eye contact with audience members, the
singer drew us deeply into the emotion of the song.
Nicholas Dinopoulos has a thrillingly powerful voice when
singing dramatically but is equally impressive with the quiet, reflective passages
of a song. He demonstrated this ability
particularly while singing ‘Sapphic Ode’.
The finale of the Brahms works was a duet, ‘The Path To Love’,
which was not only sung very well but you could see how much the two singers
enjoy working together. Andrea Katz’s
piano accompaniment for this song was especially memorable.
The second half opened with three songs from Shakespeare’s plays. All were finely sung but the duet, ‘It Was A
Lover And His Lass’ from ‘As You Like It’ was the highlight, again displaying
the great chemistry between the singers.
The last section of the program was a set of Moravian Folk Songs
by Dvorak. All five were sung as
duets. The highlight was ‘Scheiden Ohne
Leiden’ (Separation Without Suffering) in which both singers displayed tender,
heartfelt emotions as the song came to its sad conclusion.
This was yet another excellent program from Art Song Canberra
with fine singing and piano playing. I’m
looking forward to their next program on the 9th of October when Jeremy
Tatchell, baritone, and Elena Nikulina, piano, will present ‘From Russia (and
New Zealand) With Love’.
Len Power’s reviews
can also be heard on Artsound Fm 92.7’s ‘Artcetera’ program on Saturdays from
9am.