Artists International back to aid Red Cross

Artists International back to aid Red Cross

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): They were back again, the Artists International,
a group of opera singers that undertakes tours every year to
Asian countries under the auspice of the Sime Darby Group, the
main sponsor behind the 4-year old event.

Other sponsors of Le Grand Opera this year were Malaysian
Airline System and of course Sahid Jaya Hotel and Tower which by
now can be referred to as the home of opera music in Jakarta.
Like the event last year, the performance this year was in aid of
the Indonesian Red Cross.

One admirable custom of Artists International is that local
talents are invited to take part, which is a big boost for them
if only because the event provides them with an opportunity to
practice what they have been trained for. Full-fledged opera
performances are still awaiting development in this country,
although arias and excerpts are often featured in programs of
vocal music. The Indonesian singers who took part this year were
mezzo-soprano Catharina Wewengkang-Leimena and baritone
Pranadjaja.

For some of the members of Artists International the
appearance here was a second. Adib Fazah was here again, but then
he is the prime mover behind the formation of Artists
International. Last year though, Adib Fazah, a baritone, was not
well and could not sing. Mezzo-soprano Gwendolyn Jones, too, was
here last year, as were tenors Noel Espiritu Velasco and Rico
Serbo and bass, Stefan Szkafarowsky. The new comers were the
soprano singers, Patrice Boyd and Pamela Kucenic, a most
impressive and powerful singer. And last, but definitely not
least, Oksana Protenic, the accompanist who carried the lion's
share of the performance on Aug. 11.

The program included excerpts -- arias as well as ensembles --
from works by Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Gaetano Donizetti, Umberto
Giordano, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Giuseppe Verdi, Camille
Saint-Saens, Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Pietro Mascagni, Richard Strauss, and Charles Gounod. For arias
my vote goes to Stefan Szkafarowsky who rendered O Tu Palermo
from Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani; Pamela Kucenic's incomparable
interpretation of Pace, Pace from La Forza del Destino, also by
Verdi; Improvviso di Chenier from Giordano's Andrea Chenier and
sung by Noel Espiritu Velasco and Mon Coeur s'ouvre a ta Voix
from Sanson et Delila by Camille Saint-Saens and rendered by
Gwendolyn Jones, a rendition that I will remember for a long
time. I also remember Espiritu Velasco's interpretation, last
year, of Che Gelida Manina (Puccini's "La Boheme") that sent
shivers down my spine.

Ensembles

As for ensembles, the ones that really stood out were the duet
from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana which featured Pamela
Kucenic and Noel Espiritu Velasco. This was the number in which
their singing and acting skills really came to the fore.

Cavalleria Rusticana is regarded as one of the prime samples
of an operatic style that is known as verismo, or realism (in
opera, that is). It means that if you're angry, show real anger
and don't go into roulades a la Queen of the Night. Other very
noteworthy samples of team work were the duet from Gounod's Faust
with Rico Serbo and Stefan Szkafarowsky, and the duet from
Verdi's Il Trovatore with Adib Fazah and Pamela Kucenic. I'd say
it was the four singers, Kucenic, Jones, Espiritu Velasco and
Szkafarowsky who carried the evening, which does not mean that
the others did not deliver the goods. The differences were
especially noticeable in the ensembles. Soprano Patrice Boyd who
only appeared in duets has a rather thin and small voice, and was
overpowered by Rico Serbo (duet from Donizetti's L'Elisir d'a
more), Pranadjaja (duet from Mozart's Don Giovanni) and Gwendolyn
Jones (duet from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier). Catharina Leimena
also suffered from a too strong partner, Noel Espiritu Velasco,
in the duet from Verdi's Il Trovatore. It seems Leimena has lost
power, something that was already evident in the aria Che faro
senza Euridice from Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, a rendition that
sounded uncommonly low -- not that I know what key it is written
in. Pranadjaja, on the other hand, was quite admirable both in
the aria Di Provenza, il mar, il suol from Verdi's La Traviata
and La ci darem la mano (Mozart's Don Giovanni). He could have
done better if he'd also acted a bit to emphasize the character
of the lecherous Don. Most of the time he stood well away from
Zerlina (Patrice Boyd) whom the Don is trying to seduce.

Extra kudos must go to Oksana Procenic, the accompanist who
would've been dog-tired after the performance. She is, after all,
the only one who never leaves the stage. But apart from that
there was the extra power she applied in her playing. I have
never seen anyone banging away with so much force. But then, she
had to because the instrument couldn't be much more than five
feet, if not less.

In all, a rather mixed bag of some very good performances and
some that were less so. Still, events of music from the opera are
a rarity, so performances by Artists International deserve
appreciation.