amanda forsythe at sanders theater

This was billed as a duet show with soprano Amanda Forsythe and counter-tenor (CT) David Hansen, accompanied by a small group of superb baroque violin + gamba (4), theorbos + variations (2), and harpsichord players, as part of the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) concert series leading up to their full summer festival this June. With that in mind, as Stray explained to me from the pre-concert talk, most of what presented tonight was pre-cursor to what we will see, specifically one of Monterverdi’s 3 operas L’incoronazione di Poppea . The first half included 4 main duets between Poppea and Nerone with the last one’s intro music remarkably resembling the opening phrase of “Un momento di contento” in Händel’s Alcina. After intermission we got two very nice Händel’s arias sung by Amanda Forsythe and two by David Hansen.

Orchestra: I very much like the strings! Here the theorbo + other plucking instruments were not really featured but rather only accompanying. Thanks to Händel’s re-cycling habit one gets to hear some very nice “excerpts” from his operas in one of the Sonatas, specifically this “Menuet” which of course brought my mind _directly_ back to Wien (if you own the dvd and can’t remember where this ends and what follows *immediately* after, go check now 😉 ). It sounded equally gorgeous with 1 primary violin playing the main tune and 2 violas + plucking instruments + harpsichord setting the stage.

That said, for “Dopo notte” the beginning was a bit too “flow-y”, too “romantic-y” rather than joyful. Perhaps this simply is a result of my listening the last 3 nights to Ariodante from Barcelona.. But to be not so single-minded, let’s have a listen to Franco Fagioli’s version? Actually it does sound flowy here (I’m talking only of the opening with strings, more on singing and why this particular clip below)

Ok, with all caveats regarding my subjective ears for CT, as the evening progressed I felt this was an Amanda Forsythe’s show. What she wants, she can express, both with the “ease” in voice and effort, as well as shades and colors. The contrast between what I view as a natural voice (hers) versus a “restricted high voice” (his) couldn’t be clearer to me when they sing in duet. Her tone has warmth, character, and expression. His, I “felt” was more restricted to a narrow range which already “appears” uncomfortably high, and when going lower you can hardly hear and when higher quite harsh, borderline screaming/shrieking at times (to my ears). Even within the middle, when looked away so as not to be distracted by visual effect, i couldn’t quite feel the shaping.

So, as the show went on, one could sense she was in her element doing it with her flexible voice, and he with his look and “acting” more than vocal expression. Stray remarked that if he could tone down a bit the “acting” perhaps the focus might be more on vocal expression. Anyhow, I had several options for Dopo Notte sample (note my resistance 😉 ), but have decided to put Franco Fagioli’s here because, as I explained to Stray there’s a CT thing and then there’s this CT thing, namely you can hear FF’s range + expressiveness quite well, and FF actually used his chest notes in “nottÈ**” and “terrÀ” and has quite a strong base and more “pleasant” (for the ears) high in contrast to DH. My point is not to compare one CT to another, but rather a discussion on a range which is 1-sided, similar to sopranos singing *only* within her head-voice range and how flexible + less strained + expressive she can be in there.

To wrap up, many many thanks again to Stray’s cousin :-), whose ticket i inherited (very niiiice seat), and to Stray for the lovely company. Of course I’m not educated in music and perhaps have no clue what I “hear” when it comes to musicality *and* CT, but I sat there debating further if I want to attend BEMF’s L’incoronazione di Poppea this June given this is exactly what I’ll hear (identical casting as we saw today for the 2 main characters, and how much they dominate the entire opera; not to mention 2 more CT’s in other various roles, grrr). Essentially the question boils down to whether I should come to hear Amanda Forsythe sing Poppea, and yes, i should! There was some talk last year from bloggers in London ( 🙂 ) as to who should “fit” to sing this character and we have one here no doubt.

Oh, note I didn’t discuss a lot the Monteverdi’s singing part.. This is mainly because, though i had thought am familiar with this piece, it turned out i exclusively have been listening to the version with a tenor-Nerone and mostly fast-forwarded to Ottone’s parts :D, so was totally clueless on the bits sung during the concert. Here, Stray, in case you stop by, this is the only one i have listened to, not from 1950’s, rather 2006!
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** the accent thing on È and À is a vietnamese thing, when placed there, you go deep DOWN :-).