Operalia 2024 in Mumbai: a mixed bag

India Operalia 2024: Various composers and soloists, Symphony Orchestra of India / Plácido Domingo and Kamal Khan (conductors), Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai, 21.9.2024. (JSM)

Operalia is the annual competition for young singers, founded by Plácido Domingo in 1993. Its 31st edition was held in September 2024 at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre in the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, India.

This competition has been the launching pad for the careers of many now-famous operatic stars, since the jury comprises not only musicians but impresarios, casting directors and management of opera houses the world over. In Domingo’s own words, his ‘purpose in Operalia is to help identify not only the best voices, but also to discover those singers whose personalities, characters and powers of interpretation show that they have the potential to become complete artists.’ The competition is presented in two sections: the first containing excerpts from opera and the second from zarzuela, a form of operetta popular in Spanish-speaking countries.

Operalia’s presentation in Mumbai was something of a mixed bag. For one thing, the awards seemed to be somewhat inconsistent, even after allowing for the fact that the criteria are apparently not just vocalism but also a singer’s potential for an operatic career. Apart from the judging, there were other issues too, which would become clear by the end of this review. However, nearly all the performances were to a very high standard indeed.

The contest began auspiciously, with Polina Shabunina giving a stirring rendition of Juliette’s Act IV scena from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, in which she considers taking the potion given to her by Friar Lawrence. Shabunina conveyed the character’s conflict with full expression and secure high notes which were open and free, though without a proper trill above the stave.

Her efforts earned her the third prize for female singers in the opera section, which she shared with Sun-Ly Pierce, who delivered Rosina’s cavatina (from Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia) with efficient coloratura and a strong chest voice but lacking the necessary impishness and lightness of touch; and Meridian Prall, who offered a very expressive and musical ‘O ma lyre immortelle’, the title character’s suicide scene from Gounod’s Sapho, sung with exemplary legato and an evenly produced voice from deep chest tones to a powerful, gleaming top. Surely she deserved a higher award!

The second prize for female singers was awarded to Elmina Hasan, who offered a superb rendition of ‘Da, chas nastal’, St. Joan’s poignant farewell to her pastoral life, from Tchaikovsky’s Orleanskaya dyeva (The Maid of Orleans). Her performance was deeply felt and expressively coloured, although lacking a strong chest voice.

First prize for female singers was awarded to Kathleen O’Mara for ‘Depuis le jour’ from Charpentier’s Louise. This was securely sung but in a generalised manner, without properly conveying the character’s innocence and wonder at experiencing her ‘premier jour d’amour’, and with too few true pianissimos. Her tone could hardly be described as creamy; and the beat in her voice was sometimes intrusive. The reasons for awarding her the first prize were therefore difficult to fathom. Even more puzzling was her Birgit Nilsson award, which is supposed to be reserved in Operalia for singers attempting the music of Richard Strauss and Wagner. Since there were NO female singers who did so this year, her award seemed arbitrary.

The Birgit Nilsson prize for male singers was won by Le Bu, who also won the first prize for male singers in the opera section. He has the timbre of a true Heldenbaritone, with a penetrating squillo in his top notes (though the lowest notes were not so strong) as heard in his powerful rendition of the Dutchman’s monologue, ‘Die Frist is um’ from Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer. He thrillingly conveyed the character’s frustration at being cursed to wander undead for all eternity until he finds true love. The rage in the aria’s first section was acutely contrasted with great pathos in the second half, wherein he wonders whether the promise of reprieve was, in fact, a cruel joke.

Angel Romero won second prize for his plangent performance of ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ (from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore) which he sang with fine bel canto sensibility, maintaining a seamless legato in spite of the slower than normal tempo adopted by Plácido Domingo, who conducted. Domingo also accompanied Romero later, in the zarzuela section of the contest, wherein the tenor gave an utterly musical rendition of ‘Mujer de los negros ojos’ (from Jacinto Guerrero’s El huésped del Sevillano) maintaining an unbroken musical line despite the conductor’s extremely slow tempo in some sections of the aria. Romero won the zarzuela prize for male singers, presented in honour of Domingo’s father.

The prize for the best female zarzuela singer, presented in honour of Domingo’s mother, was won by Elmina Hasan for her note-perfect performance of the Carceleras from Chapí’s Las Hijas del Zebedeo. Domingo’s slow tempo helped her articulate the rapid patter-phrases and Moorish melismas precisely; but the performance seemed too studied instead of impetuous as required (and demonstrated by Victoria de los Ángeles in her classic recording). In contrast, the same aria was also performed by Sun-Ly Pierce, perhaps not as vocally proficient but arguably with more Spanish flavour, expressing the meaning of the words more clearly.

Hasan also won the special audience prize for female singers. Her male counterpart was Jack Lee; and it was easy to understand why. His rendition of ‘Largo al factotum’ (from Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia) was literally a showstopper, performed with great panache and ringing, free top notes. His communicative stage presence, coupled with secure vocalism, make him an operatic ‘natural’. It was therefore a pity (and again, puzzling) why he didn’t tie for third place in the opera section. The award was given to Vladislav Chizhov, who performed Macbeth’s aria from Act IV of Verdi’s eponymous opera with full, rich tone, evenly produced from top to bottom, and with fine cantabile in the aria proper, well-contrasted to the bluster in the preceding recitative.

The CulturArte prize was won by Eliza Boom, for her highly expressive performance of the Mirror aria from Massenet’s Thaïs, powerful above the stave and with a couple of exquisitely floated pianissimos. However, one got the impression that her middle and lower registers seemed a little weak for this role.

Two singers did not win any actual awards but were given consolation prizes. One was bass-baritone Liam James Karai, who gave a respectable account of Wotan’s apostrophe to his newly built Valhalla (from Wagner’s Das Rheingold) with clarion high notes but lacking in lower heft. The other was baritone Vladyslav Tlushch, who sang the popular zarzuela aria ‘Amor, vida de mi vida’ from Maravilla by Torroba. He fully conveyed the character’s heartbreak at having to say goodbye to the love of his life, in an impassioned performance that also was exemplary in both musicality and vocalism. He most certainly deserved to at least share the sole award for male singer in the zarzuela section of this competition.

Conducting honours were shared between Kamal Khan and Domingo. Khan’s accompaniment was generally well-judged and supportive to the singers, whipping up a fair amount of excitement when required from the Symphony Orchestra of India. Apart from one or two fluffs and a couple of acerbic woodwind solos, the orchestral playing was reasonably accomplished, especially the blazing brass in the Wagner excerpts.

There were two glaring flaws in the presentation of this event. First: there was no intermission during the sequence of performances by the singers. All the contestants were consecutively presented, without stopping, for two hours. As a result, many people could be seen leaving the auditorium in-between singers, most probably for an urgent visit to the toilet. A short break, midway between the contestants, would have surely made the experience more comfortable for the audience (many of them senior citizens) and perhaps even the judges.

Second: there were no English translations provided as projected surtitles; not even brief synopses of each opera/zarzuela and the selected arias, in the brochure. Either of these would have certainly been welcomed by the majority of the audience. This is a MUST in a country like India, where knowledge and appreciation of opera is at a nascent stage; and European languages (apart from English) are not widely understood. Opera is, after all, music drama; and arias contain WORDS which are loaded with meaning and emotion in dramatic context. Without real comprehension, opera is reduced merely to pretty sounds, vocal pyrotechnics and loud high notes.

Operalia and NCPA-Mumbai would do well to remember this.

Jiten S. Merchant