Victoria Arts Festival - Mainly Puccini evening

The festival has grown and from what I hear there have been some pretty outstanding events in this year's edition and with still more to come. The first of a few events I could attend was the recital given by Bulgarian soprano (resident in Malta) Andriana Fenech Yordanova, accompanied by Maltese pianist Joanne Camilleri. Both these ladies are accomplished artistes in their own right but despite certain external differences they make a formidable and very compatible team. One could feel and almost see visible signs of the chemistry.

The evening was "mainly Puccini" because the vocal part was entirely his. Ms Yordanova wanted to pay tribute to the composer on the 150th anniversary of his birth (coming up later this year). She sang a wide-ranging selection of arias from various operas. These were mostly taken in chronological order and began with In quelle trine morbide from Manon Lescaut. The way she put her heart and soul in the interpretation of this aria was to set the tone to her singing throughout the recital. She changed mood very quickly from the wistful utterances of Manon to the demurely initial shyness of Mimì in Mi chiamano Mimì from La Bohème, only to go to almost the other with Musetta's waltz Quando m'en v. The voice has a warm sweetness of tone and also able to muster pretty powerful forces while at the same time never losing great clarity. This kind of control, phrasing and shaping played a most important part in producing the best possible effects. This also grew on the audience whose warm reaction to the singing became gradually more and more intense.

Later, Ms Yordanova came back with more from La Bohème and back to Mimì in the very sad Donde lieta uscì from Act III. Then with a skip in chronology the next item was the immensely popular O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi. This was the best I ever heard this singer interpret this particular piece and it was not lost upon the audience. This was even more the case when she sang the impassioned and sadly optimistic Un bel dì from Madama Butterfly. Again, a superb rendering after which there was to be the second piano break but the audience insisting on giving the singer another round of applause. This too had been the case with Joanne Camilleri when during the first break for the soprano, she performed Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 18 in F sharp minor. Here was brilliant playing which began with dark, foreboding overtones in the lassù then took on an increasingly dazzling form in the friss. Joanne Camilleri's second offering was Chopin's Nocturne in C# minor, a great, highly satisfactory mix of tenderness, depth and almost trance-like reflection.

Concluding one could see an obviously very moved singer and mother in Tu, tu, piccolo iddio! from Madama Butterfly in a passionate outburst as intense as that of the different context provided in Turandot when Liù sings Tu, che di giel sei cinta. The recital ended where Puccini himself left off. The audience wanted otherwise so after some messing around with chronology the soprano gave a lovely rendering of Vissi d'arte from Tosca, and a glaring gap was thus filled up. Still more came with the last encore, O mio babbino caro.