The second program directed by Rafael Payare this week at the OSM celebrated youth, since it was the one that allowed the public to get to know the winner of the OSM Competition. Held in virtual mode, the last edition of this contest was dedicated to the “mezzo” Rose Naggar-Tremblay last fall. The singer made a very strong impression in 3 / 5th of the Sea Pictures of Elgar presented Thursday evening.
The presence of the winner of the OSM Competition was not the only tribute to youth this Thursday, since some twenty students from the orchestral immersion program of the University of Montreal, Mc Gill and the Conservatory attached to the OSM in the second part for Pictures at an exhibition. One can imagine that this initiative was particularly close to the heart of Rafael Payare, who benefited from the El Sistema program in Venezuela, giving young people a chance through music. It was certainly a stimulating experience for all these young musicians, who increased the size of the orchestra. The initiative had no negative impact (decrease in overall quality) for the public.
Displaced inventiveness
The concert started with the 29th Symphony of Mozart composed at the age of 18, the first of Mozart’s great symphonies, with the 25th which precedes it by six months.
In Mozart, Payare chooses an opulent workforce (6 cellos and 4 double basses and the rest to match), a somewhat useless luxury considering the sound output of the room. He does not oppose the violins on stage. The musical approach is quite lively and bouncy with a lively and light 2nd movement, but with a “watch-like” haste, not graceful. In the Minuet, the trio is rather slowed down but successful. We find in the Final a fair balance of horns that we didn’t have in the first part, where they punctuated the speech but without really coloring it pertinently or phrasing it. On the other hand, a huge blunder, Payare begins to invent an effect by having the violins rise decrescendo before the last 2 chords of the symphony. But when you invent an effect not requested by the composer, useless and clownish, you might as well succeed. It was so bad that we had the impression that the violins had forgotten to play.
As for the bottom line, we may be able to afford to clown around adding whipped cream in the classical repertoire when we observe the nuances in the romantic repertoire, right? Because the wanderings of phrasing due to the ignorance of the dynamic bellows in the 7th Symphony of Bruckner on Tuesday is nothing new. We saw this in My mother the goose and in The waltz by Ravel, as well as in The sea of Debussy before. And we saw this again in the thematic presentation by “Samuel Goldenberg” of the Pictures at an exhibitionThursday.
A contralto
Fortunately there have been many very beautiful things in the Tablesin particular on the part of the musicians (saxophone, bassoon admirably holding the quarter notes in “Baba Yaga”, contrabassoon in this same movement) but also of the conductor, imperial in the last minutes of the work, both on the dramatic level and colors (impeccable alliance tam-tam and “bells”).
We will therefore retain of the evening the last 6 or 7 minutes of Tablesthe Ms. OSM who strolled to the left of the floor during Elgar distracting everyone from texting and taking photos while spectators were asked, seated and calm, to put away their electronic devices and, above all , fortunately, Rose Naggar-Tremblay whose, despite the induced distraction, we managed to perceive the depth of timbre, the evenness of the voice, the control of the breath and the emotion of the song (in spite, also of the noisy organ and snoring in Sabbath Morning at Sea)
We have scouted Rose Naggar-Tremblay since the 2017-2018 season. Without trying to induce a debate on her voice presented as a “mezzo-soprano” by the OSM, she is a contralto. Its register is more serious, or at least very comfortable in the bass, without chest or sounding hollow. It would be very easy to claim peremptorily that she is the Marie-Nicole Lemieux of the next generation. But each singer is unique, each generation is unique. Rose-Naggar-Tremblay’s natural repertoire, in which we would like to hear her, nevertheless remains the Rhapsody for contralto, male choir and orchestra of Brahms. An idea and programming opportunity to be seized quickly before seeing it go on international stages.