Bo Skovhus.
Brilliance. That is what it was.
The Utzon Room is quite a small venue. It is, for instance, the VIP room for those who are deemed important enough to attend Opera Australian opening nights – quartered sandwiches and flowing wine abounds. It has a view of the wrong side of the harbour and it sits no more than 200 people. It is, if memory serves correctly, a room redesigned by Utzon himself, after he was brought back to take a second look at the Sydney Opera House after his dismissal during its building. Intimate is how you should describe it – stick a string quartet in there and it’ll sound as loud as a symphony. So acoustics were never going to be a problem.
The free alcohol, given to all patrons beforehand – and able to be carried into the room – was also certainly not going to be a problem, except for the inevitable tumble of a glass onto the floor mid-concert, much as we were prewarned to be ‘careful of the glass’ at the start. This critic was sitting about as far to the side as you could get – but far enough away from the wall so as not to feel deaf in one ear – and as such could only get a side-on view of the baritone, and an occasional glimpse of the pianist’s forehead. The lights, dimmed perhaps too much, especially considering we were all given transcriptions beforehand to read along with, were darkest where I was. The rest was musical bliss.
Schubert, who is remembered for quite a few things – a monumental string quintet, some symphonies, some song cycles, dying of syphilis – was the only composer on the program for the evening, with his ‘Winterreise, Op.89 D911’. It is a song cycle describing a man’s despair and desolation at being rejected by his lover, going on to document his vacillations between agony and false hope and everything in between, all set on a backdrop of snow, snow, and a bit more snow for good measure. (The title translates to ‘Winter Journey’, hence the frozen water.) It is a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Muller, and lasts about 70-75 minutes.
Bo Skovhus, who looks – at least from the side – like a German Roger Moore (this critic had much time to contemplate his profile), is a Danish-born baritone of impeccable tone. Simone Young, strangely the pianist, is one of Australia’s top conductors – if not the leading – and is currently in Sydney for a series of concerts with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Their synergy was remarkable throughout. Young was a colourful presence on the piano, letting each emotion of Schubert’s bloom, with a sound that was both crisp yet still maintained a certain touch of the subconscious about it. The instrument itself, too, never fails to sound full in the intimate space. Skovhus, on the other hand, was a booming (and a bit blooming, too) presence, hitting the top of his range with sweet melancholy, and blasting – though not ridiculously so – the eardrums when enraged. His voice, which you might have expected to fatigue given the length of the piece, didn’t. The attention to detail required, especially in a piece of such short lines as this (where it is easy for the audience to know which line the singer is up to, and to almost follow along syllable by syllable), was superb. The characterisation was dramatic. The entirety was sublime, and the Utzon Room music series has reached a new high in a landscape dotted with recent glories in the past few years.
This critic can’t imagine hearing this piece in any other room, or with any other musicians, to be honest. The only flaw was the program itself, which cut off the last line of the translation for the final song, where the protagonist meets a hurdy-gurdy man playing his instrument to the scorn of society and the dogs about him. But the existential despair was clear. Still, it is good to live in a society where translations can be quickly downloaded off a mobile phone, thus soothing one’s curiosity. A tremendous experience.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Utzon Music Series: Bo Skovhus and Simone Young
Simone Young (piano), Bo Skovhus (baritone)
Franz Schubert – Winterreise, Op. 89, D911
Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point
www.sydneyoperahouse.com
27 July
