THE RSNO's title for its annual concert in Kelvingrove, performed on Friday night and repeated on Saturday, was a wee bit cheeky.
They titled it A Night At The Opera, which creates certain expectations. But it was an operatic night with a difference: "Nae singers", as one wag observed. Indeed, not only was there not a trace of a soprano, with or without consumption, and not a hint of a high-flying priapic tenor, there was none of the pop repertoire associated with the voices usually regarded as essential to operatic nights.
So it was a night devoid of Nessun Dorma and la donna e mobile; Otello didn't get to kill Desdemona and Mimi didn't get to expire in Rodolfo's arms with just one more aria to sing.
But we did get the RSNO Chorus, sounding ever-so-slightly (!) more sonorous and full-toned than in their regular haunt of the Royal Concert Hall; and their presence really signified what the concert was about.
Each year, since the RSNO launched its annual Kelvingrove concert, there has been a careful advance, seeking, and usually finding, music that will work in the massively resonant gallery, where the reverb is about three seconds. The annual occasion has become a huge draw, and this year, for the first time, the RSNO Chorus was fed into the mix, with the lively Italian conductor Enrique Mazzola in charge.
The repertoire worked well, Va pensiero from Nabucco beautifully paced for the chorus, which rattled the canvases in the Grand March from Aida, while the RSNO, in the vast space, could be suitably molten in their well-chosen Wagner items from Siegfried and Gotterdammerung, alongside a spacious, golden Tannhauser.
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