As one could take it for granted, the huge auditorium was packed to welcome Rolando Villazon back to The Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, after his troubled year in 2009 when he "reluctantly" had to cancel both his appearance in Iolanta with Netrebko and only a few months later in Werther, with Garanca.
While he bounded on the stage with his accustomed youthful and winning
vigour and his infectious grin, he seems to have given himself a very
different and new personality.
Dressed completely in black, and his head crowned with a majestic mane
of pitchblack hair, his face with those sparkling black eyes and
bushy eyebrows appeared pale and somewhat drawn. On the very dimly
lit stage, and not being picked up by a personal spotlight, he seemed
almost invisible against the background of the Gabrieli Players, and
only that face, so often distorted by agonized despair while singing
one tragic aria after another from Haendel's Tamerlano and Giulio
Cesare marked his presence all the more dramatically.
Comparing the virtues or shortcomings of great tenors seems to occupy
not only the faculties of learned critics, of whom I am not one, but
also their millions of fans watching eagerly their appearances, like
in some "Casting Show". This now particularly applies to Villazon, who
after feeling "burnt out" and than having to submit himself to a
risky operation, now resumes his place as one of the most loved and
admired tenors .
Did he change, is his marvellously expressive, somewhat baritonal and
velvety voice no longer enchanting us? This is what seems to have been
in the back of the mind of many of his admirers, while greeting him
with a whirlwind of applause.
From what one can gather from his latest and very frank interview, his year of rest only deepened his dedication and total immersion in areas which in his more flamboyant years were mostly limited to his superb interpretations of despairing operatic heroes. He discovered a great and deep love for Brahms, he feels more and more drawn to such ventures as the great Baroque operas with which he is now on tour and which he also recorded, and with his co-operation with Barenboim to the field of Lieder.
He considers himself now totally balanced, free of commercial
pressures and happy, dedicated to his family and home in France. He
is aware of the risks of putting an almost superhuman effort in his
interpretations, but as his wife pointed it out to him on his way to
the operating theatre, his art is not in his throat, but in his head
and heart.
In the first half of the evening, he limited his appearences to three
short arias from Rodelinda, and Serse sharing the programme with the
excellent Gabrieli Players, whose oboist Katharina Spreckelsen amazed
one, playing a Concerto Grosso on a ventilless, wooden instrument,
with circularly breathing virtuosity and superb phrasing. Paul
McCreesh led his players with delicate assurance.
Lucy Crowe , with charming and impressive stage presence produced in
her arias as Kleopatra from Giulio Cesare a sound of glasslike
clarity and beauty, brilliantly executed virtuosic coloratura
roulads, filling them with meaning, instead of just rattling them
off, and when needed , saturating the vast hall with dramatic power
and beauty. She is already appearing on the international stage in
major roles, and I felt that she should sing a superb Desdemona one
day, with her whispered pianissimos, suddenly blossoming out in
perfectly moulded dramatic heights.
In the second half, when she also sang a long and dramatic duet
from Tamerlano she matched perfectly Villazon's uncanny ability to
impersonate tragic and despairing figures.
While experts of singing would comment that the lower registers of
Villazon's were much weaker than one was accostumed from him, and
virtuosic roulads are not really his strongest side, I found that from
time to time he threw to the wind all restraint and made one feel an
almost protective feeling that he should not harm himself in the
intensity of his suffering and despair. I sat close enough to the
stage to see tears in his eyes, sometimes through the haze in my own.
His two long encores, after an exhausting evening were completely in
the spirit of the old Villazon, producing again and again his clarion
high notes and making his audience rise in admiration and relieved
gratitude.
Photos: Andrea Kremper
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