(Krysty
Swann)
Krysty Swann showed versatility and
attractive stage personality in wide range of arias. (Review by Michael Green)
The last concert of the winter season of
the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, in the Durban City Hall, was very different
from the normal symphony concert.
It was a programme of popular excerpts from
the operas of Bizet, Verdi, Rossini and so forth. The purpose seems to have
been to provide a suitable platform for the American mezzo-soprano Krysty
Swann, who has achieved high distinction as an opera singer, and for two big
local choirs, the African Chorus and the Thokozani Choral Society.
The concert was a resounding success. The
performances were excellent and the good-sized audience gave enthusiastic
applause throughout, and with justification.
Krysty Swann, who was born in Detroit, has
been singing in public for about 10 years, since her student days at Oakland
University in Michigan and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. She
has a warm, powerful voice and strong technical skills which she applies
intelligently to the music. She showed her versatility and attractive stage
personality in a wide range of arias, from the dramatic to the coquettish.
The visiting Israeli-American conductor
Daniel Boico, who is well known here, contributed greatly to the pleasure of
the evening. He has the ability to communicate his enthusiasm not only to the
players and singers but also to the audience, and in several of the works
performed he showed a well-developed sense of humour.
Krysty Swann sang in about half of the 12
items on the programme. The high points were, I think, Soft awakes my heart from Saint-Saens’s Samson and Delilah, one of the most beautiful of all arias, and the
dramatic O don fatale from Verdi’s Don Carlos.
The choir singers, about 130 of them, were
obviously well-trained and disciplined (all credit to their choir masters,
Mongi Mzobe and Mduduzi Mthiyane), and they produced an impressive volume of
sound. They were at their peak in Va
Pensiero from Verdi’s Nabucco, a
song for freedom that well illustrates the composer’s wonderful gift of melody.
At the end Krysty Swann gave two encores,
the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen and a song from Claude-Michel
Schonberg’s musical Les Misérables,
and the audience went home happy. - Michael Green
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