One hot, humid, febrile week in September, 2009, London's Wigmore Hall opened its doors to Plushmusic. The presitigious biennial Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition had never been broadcast before, let alone syndicated in high definition sound and vision over the web.
The Hall – one of the world's great and most respected chamber music venues – believes this collaboration is a world first: the first ever classical competition to be covered in this way.
The Song Competition is an essential part of the young singer's calendar. It is the brainchild of Dr Ralph Kohn, who feels increasingly exercised at the lack of opportunities for music's next generation. "In a previous era great talent very often enjoyed patronage and the personal support of impresarios," he says. ‘This is hardly the case now." His foundation donates £17,500 to the singers' prizes. There is a £5,000 prize for pianists, too, and a £5,000 prize for a duo donated by the Jean Meikle Music Trust.
If ever a long and illustrious career could make a judge's job easy (it can't), then the jury Director John Gilhooly assembled for 2009's competition would have had no difficulties in deciding a winner. Dame Anne Evans, Ann Murray DBE and Dame Margaret Price were joined by Anneke Hogenstijn of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Dr Ralph Kohn FRS, Sir Thomas Allen and Wolfgang Holzmair. Graham Johnson OBE, Iain Burnside and John himself completed the panel.
Few musical forms pack the emotional punch of a lied – a form of song that grew out of the Romantic tradition and has since expanded to encapsulate virtually every national tradition. The intellectual and emotional demands on the performers are extreme, especially in the early rounds, when each duo has only 15 minutes to demonstrate its unique character and way of working. The atmosphere of the event was perfectly captured by baritone John Chest, speaking shortly after his performance in the heats of the competition.
Finalist Benedict Nelson has already won second prize in the Kathleen Ferrier awards and the Guildhall Gold Medal, both in 2007. But he admits that performing in competitions does not get easier with practice. Quite the contrary: ‘You work and work until you're in a place where you can feel good about yourself,' he says, ‘and then a competition comes round!'
Under this kind of pressure, a cast-iron sense of who you are is essential. Benedict's fellow finalist, American baritone Sidney Outlaw, understands this well. ‘For me, singing is like speaking,' he says. ‘After all, I sing every day, without thinking about it, and whether or not there's anyone around to hear. I certainly don't want my body to feel contrived when I sing on stage.'
Shortly afterwards, he and Plushmusic's Sandy Burnett were practising their Oprah hugs. ‘Good for you!' Sidney cried in an eerily accurate impression of the woman he calls ‘The Deity'. ‘Good for you!' Sidney's ebullient personality has won him many friends. In this competition, it may also have saved his skin: he arrived without an accompanist and British pianist John Reid stepped up to the plate at the last moment. The men had only a hour's rehearsal before they climbed the Wigmore stage, and quickly became the audience's clear favourites.
American soprano Erin Morley's performance in the final was easily her best performance in the whole competition. Rupert Christiansen declared her Rossini a ‘knockout': without doubt she gave us one of the most stunning top E-flats since the days of Joan Sutherland.
‘As a singer. I never think in terms of being more or less"dramatic",' Erin says, ‘and I think the differences in delivery between opera and lied are less than people sometimes think. The important thing, in both disciplines, is to learn how to live inside the text.'
Her approach paid dividends in the semifinals, with her rendition of Schubert's ‘Im Früling: Delphine'. ‘She's conflicted in her feelings,' Erin explains. ‘She's excited by the prospect of love, but at the same time she hesitates: love is such a nerve-wracking business!'
The 2009 competition attracted 150 applicants from 41 countries. Communicating across so many language barriers – singing in a foreign language to a foreign audience – demanded careful programming. One charismatic Danish duo who reached the semifinals grabbed this particular bull by the horns by crafting a spine-tingling sequence about death. Others, like the South African pair who won the duo prize, Erica Eloff and James Baillieu (who also won the piano prize), evangelised for their native musical tradition.
At this level, mere singing is not enough. The broadcaster Sir John Tusa, (among many other things, Chairman of the Wigmore Hall Trust) put it this way: ‘Those people who just sing the notes are not interesting. They leave you cold. There may be singers who are less than perfect, but character is what the art song is about.‘
Simon Ings
Close
Facebook
Digg
Del.icio.us
Stumble It!