Hakala, Karlström, Luttinen and Pursio in the Savoy Theatre, the 16th of August, 2020

 

When four Finnish (male) signers: baritone (Tommi Hakala), tenor (Dan Karlström), bass (Sami Luttinen) and bass-baritone (Tuomas Pursio) decide to have a 50-year concert together, it must be exceedingly difficult to decide which pieces to sing. As far as I could tell they had decided to have something for everyone: they had Finnish classics, opera, operetta, musicals and tangos in the programme. The gentlemen were accompanied by Hans-Otto Ehrström at the piano.

These men have studied music together and perhaps the best known of them is Tommi Hakala. He has a superb voice, but I would have liked to hear something more robust from him e.g. some Wagner aria.

Dan Karlström’s light voice was not at its best in the opera arias, but in the pieces from musicals in the end of the concert he was good. In the ”Guldet blev till sand” song by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus from the musical “Kristina from Duvemåla” he really took his audience and the applause was proof of that.  

Sami Luttinen took my heart with the Prince Gremin’s aria from “Eugene Onegin”. That particular aria is one of my favouriets and when Luttinen even managed to pronounce Russian exceedingly well for a foreigner, I was sold. Luttinen showed during the evening that he is a truly versatile singer, since his tango (Kangastus) was excellent, let alone his rendition of the song “Ol’ man river” from the musical  “Show Boat”. Such delicious low tones!

Tuomas Pursio performed as his aria ”Ella giammai m’amó” from ”Don Carlos” and it was followed by the duet of Philip and the Grand Inquisitor together with Luttinen. This is one of the finest opera scenes in the history, though this version did not reach the podium position. But Pursio’s Tango Desirée was really catching. And why not, when he was accompanied by Raimo Sirkiä (a retired well-known Finnish opera singer) playing accordion.

And of course every concert must have visiting stars, so in the end first Reetta Haavisto joined the men in singing ”Lippen schweigen” from the musical “The Merry Widows”. The evening ended with even more visitors joining them including e.g. Essi Luttinen and the whole group sang “Brüderlein und Schwesterlein” from “Die Fliedermaus”.