Triumph for perfect pairing
Recital with Keith Lewis (tenor)
Reviewed by John Button
DomPost 9 March, 2010
This concert was an important reminder that Simon O'Neill is not the only New Zealand tenor who occupies a place on the world's operatic and recital stages.
Keith Lewis has been a top performer for many years, singing in all the world's main opera houses and with the top conductors. And when he returns to New Zealand he invariably continues a partnership, developed over many years, with Michael Houstoun, and this varied recital showed the close rapport that has developed between them.
The heart of the programme was a song cycle, to poems by Janet Frame, composed for Lewis by Jenny Mcleod, and, for me, it was the extraordinary imagery offered by the poems rather than McLeod's music that resonated. The vocal writing is difficult, and I'm not convinced Lewis' voice was quite right - maybe he was suffering from a cold - but this was not a serious matter, although at odd times during the concert it surfaced momentarily.
No, it was the second half of the concert that made the real impression. First, we had an amazing song cycle by Benjamin Britten. 'On This Island' was composed to five poems by W H Auden in 1937, when the composer was 24, and if any evidence was needed to show just how assured and individual Britten was as a young composer, this is it.
A group of eight songs by Samuel Barber was deeply rewarding. Like Britten, Barber could really compose for the voice, and if the songs are more conventional in a harmonic sense than the Britten, they are all quality miniatures.
The Britten realisations of songs by Purcell were cleverly and sensitively done, although today they are less needed than when Britten made them for Peter Pears. But like everything else in the concert they were beautifully performed, even if some were a touch high for Lewis' voice.
The encore - 'A Chloris' by Reynaldo Hahn - was the perfect exit point from a superb recital.