Summerfest 4, RSAMD, Glasgow

ROWENA SMITH

Published on 3 Jul 2009

Review: Day four of the RSAMD's Summerfest week and the Alexander Gibson Opera Studio took on the guise of a Parisian salon with an all-French programme devoted to the songs and chamber music of Ravel and Poulenc.

Star rating: ****

Day four of the RSAMD's Summerfest week and the Alexander Gibson Opera Studio took on the guise of a Parisian salon with an all-French programme devoted to the songs and chamber music of Ravel and Poulenc.

The stifling heat added a new dimension to the sultry quality of Ravel's Introduction and Allegro, though it probably didn't do much for the tuning of the ensemble with the result that the harp and the rest of the ensemble, particularly the flute and clarinet, were sometimes at odds.

Though Ravel wrote the work as a showpiece for the new double-action pedal harp, he did so without simply resorting to technical acrobatics as harpist Hannah Phillips demonstrated here with playing of quiet delicacy.

French art song is often characterised as complex and rather recherché but this programme was a reminder that Ravel and Poulenc were rather outside the 19th- century tradition. The simplicity of Ravel's writing came across well in the youthful voices of baritone Michel de Souza in the Don Quichotte songs and soprano Monica McGhee in the Five Popular Greek Melodies.

McGhee sang the latter with a twinkle in her eye (and a decidedly Scottish accent) though she sounded a little cautious in the final song which needed more exuberance.

Moving on to Poulenc's droll song output, baritone Richard Latham provided a lesson in true French style with the Four Apollinaire settings, after which head of the opera school, and the programme's compere, Christopher Underwood made his own contribution with the decidedly aphoristic settings of Poulenc's Le bestaire.

Hearing Lee Holland play the composer's Flute Sonata immediately after showed just how much his instrumental writing owed to his songs.