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| Sunday, 7 August 2005 |
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Critics' Corner : An English Serenade Dhilan Gnanadurai is now in his second year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Before he left Sri Lanka, with no less than three Trinity College London associateships under his belt, his musicality, breath control and the beautiful timbre of his rich high baritone entertained many audiences at the Chapel of the Transfiguration in Mount Lavinia as well as at many venues in Colombo. He has now improved, in no small measure, his diction, voice characterisation and adaptation of his voice to each musical style - aspects which are not addressed sufficiently due to lack of the necessary resources here in Sri Lanka. The program began with 'Why do the nations rage so furiously together'; from Handel's Messiah. Nothing very new here - the execution of the running passages had the same sense of abandon and ease that he gave to his performance at Kollupitiya Methodist Church not too long ago. The highlight was the half-hour cycle of Songs of Travel by the English composer Vaughan Williams. This intimate collection was inspired by 9 of the similarly titled 22 poems by R. L. Stevenson. Schubert's Winterreise (Winter's Journey), on the same theme of travel, is much longer and more profound. Yet, this popular and well-known English counterpart has melody in abundance, far more than a "serious" work composed in 1904 (by an Englishman) has any right to. The soloist brought considerable interpretative insight into each one of the songs, particularly revelling in the beauties of "The Roadside Fire" and "The Infinite Shining Heavens." Overall, quite deserving of a standing ovation if the constricted seating of the little hall would have allowed. As it was, shouts of bravo echoed my own. Bravi, I should have said, because Ms. Jaya-Ratnam was the most sensitive, listening collaborative artiste that one could have desired. Both performers commendably took time before each work to introduce it. This was most professionally done, and those in the audience to whom the works were new, appreciated it very much indeed.The rest of the program was less demanding on the listener and more approachable. The solo piano items were despatched with sufficient technique, but little sense of occasion. Inner voices were clear and the fingerwork was reasonably clean and well rehearsed, but the noisy action of the baby grand piano was disturbingly audible, especially in the works by Chopin (The Ballade No. 1 in g minor, op. 23) and Mendelssohn (the brilliant Rondo Capriccioso, op. 14), at all dynamic levels. A better instrument would perhaps have illuminated the pianist's talents to more flattering effect. The operatic excerpts from Wagner's Tannhauser and Donizetti's Don Pasquale, suffered slightly from the lack of an orchestra, but still the soloist's voice and characterisation made up for this deficiency. The Faure La bonne chanson, Handel Largo and the Rodgers Some Enchanted Evening encore were all most enjoyable and sung with feeling and poise. - R. Joseph. |
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