The
international Mirjan Helin Competition was arranged in Helsinki for the eighth
time this May. Even though I made the decision at the last minute, I was able
to buy a ticket to the competition final, which was super interesting. There
were four men and four women in the final and both winners got 30.000 euro.
I had
watched on Yle Areena web site the semifinal performances of the finalists and
I was really looking forward to their final performances. My favourite already
based on the semifinals in the men’s category was Italian-Venezuelan
countertenor Rodrigo Sosa Dal Pozzo. In the final he improved his performance
further. First he sang the song “The Field of the Dead” from Sergei Prokofiev’s
cantata “Alexander Nevsky”. Already in the semifinals Sosa Dal Pozzo has proved
that he can pronounce even Finnish really well, so I was no longer surprised
that his Russian was excellent. And when the emotion in “The field of the Dead”
was hand felt, I was enthralled. After
hearing his second song - Rinaldo’s aria
“Or la tromba” from Handel’s opera “Rinaldo”, there was no doubt in my mind,
who would get my vote in the competition even though I knew, that countertenors
do not usually win singing competitions. And he did not. He got second prize
(and the prize for the best Finnish song, which he really deserved) and the
winner was Russian-born German singer Stefan Astakhov. He also sang
beautifully, but in my ears Sosa Dal Pozzo was better.
In the women’s
competition you could really see the meaning of song choice. Before the final
the front runner was the Russian soprano Olga Cheremnykh. She sang really well
in the final, too, but she had chosen for the final two arias that were rather
similar to each other (Marfa’s aria in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Tsar’s Bride” and
Medora’s aria in Verdi’s “Il Corsaro”). When her competitor, the Swedish
soprano Johanna Wallroth had chosen two very different type of arias (Anne
Truelove’s aria “No Word from Tom” from Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress”
and Juliet’s aria “Je veux vivre” from Charles Gounod’s opera “Romeo and Juliet”,
she had a chance to present the versatility of the voice and her ability to act
different characters in a far better way than Cheremnykh. Wallroth was my
favourite and she did win the first prize.
Even though
this year’s competition was considered to be of high level, at least based on
the final, it is easy to say that the first two singers of the final were
clearly better than the two others both in men and women. Jussi Juola, Bryan
Murray, Palesa Malieloa and Teaa An were on Wednesday night fair and square not
as good as the two first prize winners.
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| The jury and the competitors |
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