The main thing is to be able to address – Elīna Garanča responds to Latvian Television during the relative respite between two large concerts of Robert Schuman, Johannes Brahms and Sergejs Rahmaninovs sung in Liepaja on the same day, October 10, asked about the meaning and main goal of the stage artist’s performance.
Our operative, who has not yet managed to sing on stage the long-awaited, vocally and emotionally ambitious dramatic role of Amneris by Giuseppe Verdi Aida, is now just as serious about the world of vocal chamber music. From large-scale “staging”, the focus has shifted to the small format of concentrated expression and its emotional capacity. From a “novel” character in an opera image system – to stories that should be convincingly told in just a few minutes in each song. It seems that the conversation in the format of chamber music has also created a strange time of pandemic, which has slowed down the daily race and makes everyone look deeper into themselves and their loved ones.
The world of romance
This was Elīna Garanča’s first performance in Liepāja Concert Hall Great amber (October 13 – also at the Latgale Embassy Gors). She played with the outstanding Scottish pianist, experienced concertmaster Malcolm Martino, who collaborates with many vocal art stars. They offered the Latvian audience a magnificent large-scale program. At the beginning of the concert she sang the cycle of Robert Schuman Women love and life, Elīna Garanča continued with a selection of nine songs by Johannes Brahms and ended the evening with seven songs by Sergei Rachmaninoff with the words of Tolstoy, Apuhtin, Mamoshina and other Russian poets. The program was purposefully moving in an ever-increasing emotional upheaval, crowned by a real element – Spring waters in the words of Tjutchev – and two other wonderful interpretations in additions, including the Don’t sing, beauty, in which Elīna Garanča mezzo – soprano captivated with oriental flexibility. All this – in a one-piece concert with two small piano solo inserts between the mentioned song blocks. Then again in an hour and a half.
This is a world of romanticism, but multi-layered and contrasting, and the artist proves that a wide range of human feelings and expressions can be discovered without jumping in different styles. “I like contrasts. I want to show that I can still sing whispers and be gentle, gentle, sing intimate,” Elīna Garanča explains why she focuses on chamber music. She succeeds convincingly: warm, thrilled, true, fragile, emaciated, blissful, sublime, anxious, melancholic, even fateful.
Women’s love and life can be felt everywhere, not only in Robert Schuman’s cycle with this name, because the dialogue of the performer with music is filled with deeply personal, genuine revelations. The singer’s voice resounds and flows with the spring joy and longing of youth, as well as resignation, pain and reconciliation. The boundary when delays in memories and reflections on our time and values become increasingly important for a person are also clearly marked. With these messages, the listeners are addressed by a mature, experienced personality, for whom professional mastery is a tool, not an end in itself.
Vocal lyric beads
The chosen repertoire is very suitable for Elīna Garanča’s mezzo-soprano voice, the wide range of which allows it to be both saturated deep and dark in the low tesiture (for example, in the closing song of the Schuman cycle You hurt me for the first time), and the clear and shiny soprano “on top” with which she once dazzled nice singing in the opera roles of Master Joachino Rossini (Barber of Seville, Cinderella), but now shakily highlighted the dramatic climaxes of the songs of Johannes Brahms and Sergei Rachmaninoff. And these are only the extreme limits, Elīna Garanča’s vocal fluency, breath, expressive intonation, nuance of vocal sound are already taken as an obvious value.
The artist enchanted with an unadulterated stage performance. This is especially important because in chamber music the singer has nowhere to hide. It is only he who resonates honestly and openly with the chosen author for the language of music and poetry. Nothing can be said here with an empty, alienated form. The speech of Elīna Garanča and Malcolm Martino was a true, deep and intimate conversation about the essentials. This must now be acknowledged even by those who see in the outwardly restrained, restrained Elīna Garanča a bright, mind-guided artistic personality.
Malcolm Martino played for the first time in Latvia, and one can only admire his ability to play music in the same breath as the singer. The pianist, endowed with a subtle musicality and a sense of tact, feels the voice as if he were singing. He chooses not to disturb and remains almost imperceptible, but sensitively and expressively forms each phrase. The after-play for the closing song of Robert Schuman’s cycle, which summarized the dramaturgy of the cycle, recalling the bright beginning, was especially addressed. The pianist sings a piano. An unusually long memory of Robert Schuman’s Dream from the cycle remains Children’s scenes, although this melodic infinity has been heard in us even in the performances of Martha Argerih and Eliso Virsaladze.
Elīna Garanča and Malcolm Martino have recorded a Schumann and Brahms chamber music album, which will be released by the company on November 6. Deutsche Grammophon. The singer’s plans also include pearls of Latvian vocal lyrics. The status of an opera star, the ability to address and the trust gained by the international audience can significantly help the world to notice and appreciate this music.
–
