Listening to recordings by past European operatic super-stars such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Joan Sutherland and Birgit Nilsson after attending these Taipei rehearsals, I found to my surprise that I missed the local soloists, with their delicate timbres, youthful voices and incisive singing tones. These internationally-acclaimed recordings seemed to miss the intimacy, the purity, and especially the comedy so integral to Mozart, and these are the very qualities in which this new production is so strong.
In another interesting development, the NSO will be touring its 2003 production of Tosca round Taiwan next month, featuring several soloists from this Giovanni. Tosca will play in Hsinchu County Culture Bureau Theater (May 8), Chunghua County Yuanlin Performance Hall (May 11) and Tainan Municipal Cultural Theater (May 14).
The only question remaining about this Giovanni is how far the magic of those rehearsals -- in a moderately-sized ballet studio with only piano accompaniment (but what piano accompaniment!) -- will transfer to the National Concert Hall, which is after all itself a somewhat cavernous 19th century auditorium. Only tonight's performance will tell.
Performance notes:
Don Giovanni opens tonight at Taipei's National Concert Hall, with a second performance on Sunday. Both begin at 7.30pm. At press time a few tickets were still available at NT$1,000 and above for tonight, and rather more at NT$800 and above for Sunday. Tel: (02) 2343-1647 for details.
RSS