Perhaps due to
approaching Christmas there was rather small an audience only, who came to see
the Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja in Finlandia Hall, which was a shame. Calleja
is at the moment one of the most praised lyric tenors in the world and after
this concert it was easy to join the choir. Though, it seemed as if he was just
recovering from flu or it was about to hit him, since he regularly cleared his
sinuses (once even in the middle of an aria) during the concert. So he was not
at his best in this concert, but Calleja is a good singer even suffering from a
flu.
The concert had two
parts. Before the intermission Calleja sang arias from operas of Mozart,
Donizetti, Verdi, Massenet and Puccini in different languages. He also sang two
arias outside the programme leaflet (Verdi, Cilea). In my opinion Calleja was
at his best in Italian operas. Sure, he also sang German and French arias ok,
but in the Italian arias his voice gained some extra tenor. I liked the most
the aria ”Tombe degli avi miei” from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Incredibly
touching! I admit that I had to flutter my eyelashes and clear my throat a few
extra times in the end of the aria. I almost had to dig out my handkerchief
from my tote.
Calleja’s voice is
very strong and in the beginning of the concert I wondered if he even could
sing light and near silent tones. Well, based on this concert, that lightness
may not be his forte, at least at the moment. On the other hand, at its best
his voice rang so beautifully that small weaknesses were easy to forget.
After the intermission
Calleja concentrated on other songs and again in several languages. I was positively surprised about his
Russian. It may not have been perfect, but it was really good. He even sang one song in Maltese (J. Vella’s Il-Kebbies
Tal-Fanali), which was a nice surprise, since most of the songs were really
well known to everybody. It is nice to hear something different every now and
then.
Even though the
audience was smallish, it was full of Calleja fans and as a reward for
boisterous applause, Calleja sang all of six encores (unless I lost count and
they were more): a couple of Spanish songs (concert ended with Granada), couple
of Christmas songs, La vie en rosen (seems to be one of opera singers’
favourites) and one song from the musical “Fiddler on the roof”. Latest “If I were a rich man” proved what
a great performer Calleja is. Already
in ”La vie en rose” he joined the audience and sang the end of the song
kneeling in front of a one lucky lady and in the Fiddler he threw himself into
the role like a true entertainer. All in all the evening was a superb beginning for the holiday season despite
some small wrinkles.
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