Newspaper: Newsday
Date Published: Saturday 17th May, 2014
I wasn’t looking forward to a local production of Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. I have a CD of that comic operetta recorded on New Year’s Eve at Convent Garden with Kiri Te Kenawa as Rosalinde, Benjamin Luxor as Dr Falke and Placido Domingo conducting the orchestra. I play it most New Year’s Eves – and whenever I feel the need for a laugh to good music. It’s probably the best recording of that Strauss operetta available.
Seated in the Queen’s Hall studying the programme I wondered how a piano duet could fulfill the role of a full orchestra – even with accomplished pianists Enrique Ali and Darren Shillingford – and indeed, it did sound a little thin as the Overture signalled the start of the performance. However, as soon as Ayrice Wilson, as the chambermaid Adele, began to sing I relaxed. She had the right degree of sauciness, her diction was very good indeed, I had no trouble understanding the words she was singing – in English (my CD was sung in German with some English in the spoken passages). However, one would have liked a more staccato version of the laughing song in Act Two. Read full article here
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