Aurora Marthens at the Savoy Theatre, the 27th of August, 2018

I have this year seen/heard already three times the young soprano Aurora Marthens in various productions. It is very interesting to follow the development of young singers and therefore I decided to, for the fourth time this year, go and see her perform in her own concert “Aurora Marthens On Stage” at the Savoy Theatre.

The programme of the concert consisted of pieces that she plans to sing in the ARD Music Competition 2018 that begins next week in Germany and it had arias from Händel to Bernstein and included also a few lieds. The audience was quite small and it seemed that it was mostly friends and family. So the relaxed home-spun speeches of Marthens suited the situation perfectly and made also the audience relax. In addition to Marthens there was a surprise guest performer at the concert - the young violinist Rebecca Roozeman, who played strikingly pieces from Beethoven and Massenet.  

Marthens is undoubtedly a talented singer and her voice has abundantly coloratura features. The competition programme may not have been perfect for a concert, but it was definitely interesting to hear it and I now have a far more complete picture of her abilities compared to before.

Marthens is a young, still developing singer and in some parts of the programme it was possible to hear that she does not yet have any long career behind her. At the same time, I must say that a few times her voice reached a truly splendid level. Marthens’s voice is classified as a lyrical coloratura, but in my opinion she was actually at her best in the bit more dramatic songs. They were charming pools of tranquility after a lot of admittedly beautiful runs. Personally I liked especially the aria ”Depuis le jour” from Charpentier’s opera ”Louise”. Its exquisite lines gave Marthens a great opportunity to present also the darker shades of her voice. Lovely!  

All in all the evening was really interesting, even though Marthens still has things to develop in her performances. Some small adjustments need to be made e.g. in her pronunciation of Italian. The tone of the vowels is not yet quite correct, though the articulation as a whole is quite clear. But such details will surely improve the more experience she will gain. I warmly recommend others to follow her future career, too! There are bound to be interesting performances awaiting us.

Marthens and accompanist Robert Roozeman