Italian bass Adolfo Corrado was the surprise winner of the main prize in the final round of this biennial singfest, emerging to beat two mezzos and two sopranos. At 29, having trained as an actor before discovering his singing voice – by now a formidable sound – Corrado has already been fast-tracked to the stage of La Scala Milan, but the prediction of the vocal cognoscenti here that he would become a very fine Verdi baritone may give him pause for thought.
It was indeed in his Verdi aria from I Lombardi that Corrado’s dramatic vigour came through most convincingly, with his acting skills also in play as Figaro and Dr Bartolo in the more conventional arias by Mozart and Rossini. All Italian, and all the better for exemplary diction, but arguably too narrow a focus.
Effervescent soprano Jessica Robinson, representing Wales, delighted the home crowd, acquitting herself best in Donizetti’s Chacun le Sait from La Fille du Régiment, and Arditi’s Il Bacio, pinging out the high notes. Beth Taylor, representing Scotland, conveyed well Giulio Cesare’s imperious machinations in her Handel aria, her mezzo voice plush and stylishly used, yet in the somewhat slow-burn first of an unfamiliar aria by the Austrian Wilhelm Kienzl, followed by Berlioz’s Le Spectre de la Rose from Les Nuits d’été – apt on a close and sultry night – Taylor didn’t quite fulfil the promise of earlier appearances when she’d been much fancied. And, with online votes this year coming in from across the world, the audience prize went to neither Robinson nor Taylor, but to Colombian soprano Julieth Lozano Rolong.
Two South African singers, soprano Nombulelo Yende – younger sister of coronation soprano Pretty Yende – and mezzo Siphokazi Molteno, both made a particularly strong impression over the whole competition, including the Song Prize won by tenor Sungho Kim. In this final, Yende’s aria from Moniuszko’s Halka was deeply emotional, but so controlled as to seem effortless when soaring high. Reining in some of her power for Tatyana’s Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Yende’s natural musicality, personality and fire were nevertheless evident.
For many – and I include myself among them – Molteno’s glorious mezzo was the most memorable voice and, across the week, she showed an unusually wide choice of repertoire, from Mahler to South African songs and, in this final, the richness right through her considerable vocal range in Octavian’s aria Wie du warst from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. An intensity of demeanour disappeared when, in her last aria, Rossini’s Una Voce Poco Fa – more usually a soprano lollipop – she was relaxed, comfortably comic and showing herself to be a mezzo with knockout coloratura, a rare talent. Conductors Ryan Bancroft and Michael Christie gave sympathetic support with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
