Concert in the foyer of the Finnish National Opera, the 30th of April, 2022

Singers of the Finnish National Opera regularly perform also in free concerts in the foyer of the opera house. The popularity of the concerts has grown year by year and also this eve of the First of May the foyer was packed with eager friends of classical music.

The concert was begun by basses Juha Pikkarainen and Marko Nykänen with the duet of Rigoletto and Sparafucile from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto”. It was a charming performance. Pikkarainen continued with Rigoletto’s aria ”Pari siamo”. After the aria mezzosoprano Monika-Evelin sung ”Lilacs” by Sergei Rachmaninoff and ”Not a word, o my friend”  by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Both Liiv’s interpretations were rather sorrowful, even though Tchaikovsky’s song – at least its words – are a lot about happiness. The Russian theme continued when Heikki Hattunen sang Lensky’s aria ”Kuda, kuda” from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin. This aria is one of my favourite arias by Tchaikovsky, but it requires an excellent tenor to hit me hard. Hattunen’s voice is not the type of tenor that usually makes me swoon, but he made an excellent interpretation of the aria, so I was actually very happy. Next, we jumped to German music, when Marko Nykänen sand “Meresleuchten” and “Heimlickeit” by Carl Loewe. These songs did not touch me much and I started to look forward to Leonora’s aria “O mio Fernando” from the Gaetano Donizetti’s opera “La Favorita” by Polina Liiv. She has a very beautiful voice, but the performance itself remained soulless.

After the interval baritone Dong-Hoon Han sang three songs from Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise”. Do I even need to say that after the excellent performances of ”Winterreise” that I have heard lately, this one did not really interest me much. Next soprano My Johansson sang Amelia’s aria “Ecco l’orrido campo” from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “A masked ball”. Johansson’s interpretation was not yet perfect, but it was promising enough that I look forward to hearing her more. Then soprano Tatjana Romanova-Vorotsova sang the aria ”Casta Diva” from Vincenzo Bellini’s opera ”Norma”. This aria is extremely difficult, but Romanova-Vorontsova’s performance was good. She eased it a bit by breathing in the middle of some phases, but in such a light concert it was permissible. The last piece of the concert was Polina Liiv’s performance of Charlotte’s aria “Va! Laisse couler mes larmes” from Jules Massenet’s opera ”Werther”. This interpretation was just as soulless as her first aria. But all in all the concert was quite nice and an interesting experience, which encourages one to go and see the future concerts, too.