Above: Freddie De Tommaso made his Australian and Sydney Opera House debut with this recital. Image: supplied.
Everyone loves an Italian tenor. That inimitable sound, stage presence and range of colours, let alone characters, can make quite the entertainment. In the spirit of a legacy of tenor singing over the decades of concert performances, recordings, films and stage appearances from superstars such as Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, Freddie Tommaso’s Il Tenore In Concert drew on history and tugged at our heartstrings with its uninterrupted sequence of tenor sound with piano.
This emerging tenor superstar on the global scence journeyed down to the Antipodes from his British birthplace to bring us a concert of more than just opera. Amidst much single song items on the programme we did hear excerpts from Verdi’s I Lombardi, Puccini’s Tosca, Giordano’s Fedora, Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda.
The majority of this concert programme’s seventeen items, however, were non-operatic songs. They were instead the Neopolitan style pieces that tenors such as Caruso and others mentioned here earlier could not resist performing when showing off their vocal prowess.
And the display of opera and more we received from Freddie De Tommaso was a fine one. Audience members shouted, applauded and made appreciative noises various following each number. This tenor-who, post his Royal Academy of Music studies, wowed audiences when he took over the huge role of Cavaradossi after interval one UK day- included ‘Recondita armonia’ in this recital to great effect. His masterful projection of the big tenor moments plus the intricacies and nuance of the aria’s more delicate architecture were a thrill to experience.
The contasts between the powerful tenor declamatory sound and a sweeter lyricism with a warm, endearing conversational lilt were pleasing features of all scenes and atmospheres contained within the song structures selected intelligently for Il Tenore.
Central to such clever selections were no less than five songs composed by the Italian expat singing teacher in nineteenth century Britain, Paolo Tosti. These popular pieces, rich in description, sensuality and compact predicament were expertly layered and beautifully shared with us. Introductions, postludes and poetic rhythms of the always excellent accompaniment from Opera Australia staff member, excellent pianist and coach Kate Johnson also added to the creation of instant, clear and well-shaped pictures here.
Above: Freddie De Tommaso, following the path of the operatic tenors and leading exponents of Neopolitan song in history.
Even in the unfortunate absence of surtitles for what was a quantity of unknown text and lyrical scenarios, the plethora of environments so delicately display here celebrated the power of these Neopolitan songs for tenor voice. Their shapely elegance was consistently delivered by De Tommaso with superb control and an intricate tracing of line.
Right before the interval there was a well-characterised and balanced delivery of the ‘Cherry Duet’ from L’amico Fritz by Mascagni, the celebrated composer who brought us Cavalleria Rusticana. The soprano blending so well, who was also illustrating comfortable, well-paced sentiment on stage was this tenor’s wife, Alexandra Oomens. This talented Aussie expat and fellow graduate from the Royal Academy of Music recently impressed us with her fine comic skill and operatic stagecraft in the role of Despina for Opera Australia’s revival production of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte.
Throughout this concert we were introduced to rarer operatic moments such as this duet. The cleverly constructed concert programme sidestepped the huge cliche tenor moments. The ‘O sole mio’, ‘Nessun Dorma’ and ‘La donna e mobile’ style moments were absent- some to be found on blockbuster recordings for this star, or devoured in operas Freddie may well encounter on his busy contracts across Europe.
Instead we were humbly and earnestly introduced to Di Capua’s ‘I’ te vrria vasi’ and Puccini’s separate song ‘Sole e amore’ (in its guise before it reappeared in La Bohème). The superstar tenor Caruso’s favourite songs of love outside of opera, such as De Curtis’ Tu, ca nun chiagne!’ or Tosti’s ‘L’alba sepàra della luce l’ombra were instead offered, their miniature vocal and dramatic challenges managed attractively here.
A scintillating atmosphere from the new Neopolitan songs to be gifted to us at this event was Passione from the 1934 pen of Valenti and Tagliaferri. The tone colour and dramatic intensity witnessed in this description of desparate love alone illustrated why this clear communicator is taking the operatic and non-operatic world by total storm- and won our hearts and heads at this special event.
