ROHM welcomes the New Year in Viennese Style

Photos by Khalid al Busaidi

Kicking off the New Year’s Eve celebrations just after sunset, the Royal Opera House of Musical Arts presented a spectacular concert in true Viennese style on Tuesday evening to a packed house. It featured the internationally acclaimed bass-baritone, Erwin Schrott, alongside the St. Petersburg Northern Sinfonia Orchestra under the baton of Russia's favourite Italian conductor, the flamboyant Fabio Mastrangelo. It seems that Fabio is quite the performer himself, using gesture, mime and parody throughout the concert, interacting with soloist and musicians alike and bringing a whole new meaning to conducting!

Part One began in Rossini’s amusing soundworld with the ‘Barber of Seville’ Overture. It gave the orchestra an opportunity to demonstrate their astounding ensemble playing, formidable string section and clarity of the brass, including some beautiful horn melodies early on. That they maintained accuracy and tone colour in louder passages – right to the end of the concert - is a tribute to their superb musicianship.

Uruguayan bass-baritone and vocal star of the night, Erwin Schrott entered stage left, conferred with the conductor with restrained comic theatrics, and launched into a strong, dramatic delivery of Don Basilio’s Aria, “La Calunnia e’un venticello”. The score was at hand as an aide-memoire, but stage presence was never lost in presentation as the music swelled to a robust Rossini conclusion to this well-known aria.

The Overture, ‘L’Italiana in Algeri’, gave the woodwind a chance to shine, and the ensemble to project some impressive dynamic variation into the auditorium. Fabio was in fine form, almost dancing in gesture while the Leader (Concert Master), Sandra Shinder gave a visually animated and colourful performance from the front desk. Oboe/Cor Anglais player, Svetlana Usacheva executed some tricky solos with panache in dialogue with lively piccolo themes from Maria Popova.

Erwin Schrott was a perfect Don Profondo in, ‘Medaglie incomparabili’ from Il Viaggio a Reims, an opera buffa patter-song, with his exquisite facial expressions and vocal acrobatics. There was more conspiratorial interaction with the conductor, ending on a long sustained final note followed by hugs in keeping with his mercurial character.

Giuseppe Martucci, known as ‘the Italian Brahms’ is a lesser known composer, but was given well deserved exposure in the Sinfonia's performance of his 1891 “Notturno” Op. 70. It was a delightful contrast to the foregoing Rossini in its lyrical romantic style with lush string swells and rich, warm horn lines, led by Iakov Dzedik. They maintained a controlled, almost prayer-like quality featuring some beautiful first violin and harp (Antonina Shishkanova) melodies.

Schrott introduced his next Aria, ‘Udite!’, from Donizetti’s, ‘L’Elisir d’Amore’, explaining that the elixir is a supposed cure-all. He was clearly at ease and confident as the conniving Dr Dulcamara in this popular concert aria, enunciating the fast rhyming comic banter by heart and producing a plastic water bottle prop, much to everyone’s amusement.

Gounod’s, ‘Nuit de Walpurgis’ suite from ‘Faust’ included some expressive playing in the ‘Waltz of the Nubian Slaves’ from the strings, and in the light and lively, ‘Mirror Variations’. Much darker colours came from percussion and brass in the stormy, ‘Phryne’s Dance’, melting into a Strauss-like waltz before being interrupted by the storm once more.

Erwin Schrott made his final appearance as the frightening Mephistopheles in, ‘The Golden Calf’. It was powerful and fiercely declaimed in French to brass and percussion clashes; a short but powerful tour de force finale, sans encore.

Part Two was devoted to the Strauss family repertoire. It began with the much loved, ‘Die Fledermaus’ Overture, a chestnut to open the traditional Viennese New Year’s celebration. The ensemble had not lost its broad dynamic range, punctuated by dramatic pauses for effect. ‘The Kaiser Waltz’ was a rousing variation in rhythm with a lovely solo from cellist, Maria Malyshkina. In the famous waltz section the orchestra displayed its ensemble timing throughout the rubato and accelerando passages. It was an almost flawless interpretation of Strauss’s delicious orchestration which continued into the ‘Annen Polka’.

One of Mastrangelo’s favourite waltzes, ‘Roses from the South’ was delicate and sensitively communicated, losing nothing of its warmth and tone as the musicians swayed to and fro in a visually compelling interpretation.

The, ‘Perpetual Mobile’ proved to be a comic highlight, as the problem was not to play fast but how to stop! After a woodwind theme passed from piccolo to bassoon (Artur Kanatov), the conductor seized the Leader’s bow, the brass mouthpieces, and finally blew a whistle in sheer desperation to end the piece!

It is quoted that on first hearing, ‘The Blue Danube’, Brahms said, “I wish I’d composed that”. Readers may wish they too had heard the superb execution in its entirety, followed by the fast, jubilant drumroll of ‘Trisch-tratsch Polka’ and the sparkling, ‘Thunder and Lightning Polka’ with dancing instrumentalists, all stops out, punctuated by syncopated interruptions. It was a fine finale for a vivacious concert of world-class music. The audience was encouraged to clap along to the famous, ‘Radetzky March’ Encore, soft and loud, conducted by Maestro Mastrangelo, then poured out into the streets after two hours without a break, to be met by jubilant revellers celebrating Oman’s soccer victory over Saudi Arabia!