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| Nicol Car and Etienne Dupuis |
Presented by
Andrew McKinnon and Associates.
Canberra
Theatre 9th August 2019.
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens.
It may have
been one of the year’s coldest nights outside, but inside the Canberra Theatre
the audience couldn’t have been more warm and welcoming to the artist touted as
being “one of the most outstanding singers to emerge from Australia in recent
years”. Nicole Car has been receiving rapturous reviews for her performances in
major opera houses around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, the
Paris Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and her Canberra concert
had been eagerly anticipated.
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| Nicol Car |
Adding icing
to the cake, Car is partnered for this tour by her handsome French Canadian
husband, internationally acclaimed baritone, Etienne Dupuis with whom she has
shared the stage for her role debut as Violetta in Opera Australia’s 2018
production of “La Traviata”. An
additional attraction was their accompanist, Australian-British concert
pianist, Jayson Gillham, also being lauded as “one of the finest pianists of
his generation.
As it turned
out, all three artists lived up to their reputations, delivering a superbly
balanced, artfully executed recital which could only be described as exquisite.
Showing off
a figure many fashion models would envy, Nicole Car made her entrance wearing a
stunning black velvet gown that revealed a shapely leg through the hip high diamanté
trimmed split in the skirt.
She
commenced with an exquisite rendering of
the soft, slowly moving melody of Duparc’s
L’invitation au voyage,
setting a serene tone which Etienne Dupuis echoed singing two more songs by
Henri Duparc, Chanson triste’ and Le
manoir de Rosemonde’, both displaying his masterful control of breath and
tone. Then addressing the audience in a short, charming introduction, he varied
the mood slightly with Faure’s Chansons
du pecheurs’, which he warned was “another song about death and grief”.
The art
songs continued with two lustrous items from Car, Faure’s lovely Automne and a devastatingly beautiful
rendition of Massenet’s “Elegie”, which
were followed by the first of two exquisitely detailed and heavily romantic piano solos from Jayson
Gillham, L’isle Joyeuse’ by Debussy, which
Gillam described as a bitter sweet love letter, and later Granados’ The Lover and The Nightingale’. As with
his solos, Gillham impressed with his exquisite voicings and detailing, nowhere
more on display than during his perfectly judged accompaniments for Car’s beguiling
interpretation of Hahn’s L’heure
exquise’.
The first
half of the recital ended with an intriguing duet, written especially for Car
and Dupuis by Kevin March entitled La
Noche Oscura. This setting of a 15th century poem depicting a surreptitious
meeting of lovers the work required Car to sing in English and Dupuis in French
before finally coming together in Spanish. It was as delightful as it was
unusual.
The second
half of the program began in a light hearted mood with Car taking the stage in
a cheeky black jumpsuit to give an equally cheeky rendition of Massenet’s Nuit d’Espagne which she followed by a thrilling rendition of the
Delibes party piece Les Filles de Cadix’.
Not to be
outdone, Dupuis, in operatic mode,
removed his jacket to follow with an exhilarating, full- throated version of a rarely heard trio
of songs by Ravel entitled trois chansons
de Don Quichotte a Dulcinee’.
In an
un-programmed highlight, Car joined Dupuis for a ravishing rendition of the duet,
Ah! Dite alle giovine from Verdi’s “La
Traviata” in which, without any verbal explanation, both immediately established
the fraught dramatic context, provide the audience with a glimpse of Car’s
moving interpretation of Violetta’s heartbreak, and Germont’s patriarchal
anguish.
Dupuis
continued with a stirring account of Per
me giunto’ from Verdi’s “Don Carlo”,
following which, after a long
dramatic piano introduction by Jayson Gillham, Car made a stunning entrance
dressed in a stunning red Valentino gown with hooded cloak to offer a ravishing
rendition of the dramatic aria forever associated with Maria Callas, Tu che le vanita’ from the last act of
Verdi’s “Don Carlo”.
After
acknowledging the tumultuous applause the three artists again delighted the
audience with two surprising encores...the romantic pop song, Non ti scordar mai di me (Never Forget About
Me), and then finally, a swoon-enducing rendition of Love Unspoken from Lehar's “The Merry Widow”, ending a recital to cherish.
This review also appears in Australian Arts Review www.artsreview.com.au