The Špilberk Festival organised by the Brno Philharmonic has put together a rich programme for the third week of August. This year’s 27th edition of the traditional open-air festival will once again fill the grand castle courtyard with music, with the aim of making classical music accessible even during the summer holidays. Tenor Štefan Margita chose this occasion to celebrate his 70th birthday. Together with soprano Jana Šrejma Kačírková and conductor Jan Kučera, Margita presented a concert of opera and musical arias on Saturday, 22 August.
A native of Košice, Štefan Margita has performed in some of the world’s most famous opera houses during his career, including La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Opéra Bastille in Paris and others. He became renowned primarily for his portrayals of characters in Janáček’s operas. In Brno, he was joined by Jana Šrejma Kačírková, an established soloist at the National Theatres in Prague and Brno. Her repertoire includes a number of leading roles for which she has received prestigious awards – in addition to three Thalia Awards, she is the holder of four South Bohemian Thalia Awards and the “Libuška” honorary award from the Opera 2013 festival. The Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by Jan Kučera, a conductor and composer who works with leading Czech orchestras. His compositions focus primarily on symphonic and incidental music.
The programme for Saturday’s concert consisted of Margita’s repertoire, supplemented by soprano arias and orchestral pieces by various composers. The concert opened with the overture from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, performed by the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra. The performance lacked assurance, and the tempo was highly erratic, to the detriment of the melodic phrasing. Despite the conductor’s clear direction, the ensemble only truly came together in the arias of Donna Anna and Don Ottavio. Although the soloists sang to a high standard, their amplification was uneven, which significantly detracted from the overall impression. From the first half of the evening, the aria Kuda, kuda vy udalilis from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin was undoubtedly the most moving moment. Margita achieved a delicate pianissimo in the high registers without losing any of the tension. Jana Šrejma Kačírková shone with her rendition of the devotional prayer Ave Maria, piena di grazia from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Otello. By contrast, Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria (arranged by Lukáš Sommer for voice and orchestra) sounded rather forced and, in this version, lost the crystalline texture that so perfectly complements the meaning of the supplicatory text.
After the interval, the Hradec Králové Philharmonic took the stage once more, this time with Skočná from Act 3 of Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride. Once again, they struggled to stay together rhythmically, particularly in the brass and rhythm sections. Jan Kučera conducted the rapid changes with real vigour, but unfortunately he did not quite manage to temper this hurried flow of sound. This was followed by arias from George Gershwin’s African-American opera Porgy and Bess, which came across quite well, and the orchestra and soloists were in good harmony. From Antonín Dvořák’s opera Rusalka, the Polonaise from Act 2 was performed, followed by Rusalka’s aria Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém, in which soprano Kačírková delivered an admirable performance. An unexpected thematic shift came with the dramatic song Les temps des cathédrales from Riccardo Cocciante’s musical Notre-Dame de Paris. The closing song Caruso by Lucia Dalla, with Czech lyrics by Zdeněk Borovec, was a truly unusual way to end the evening. The orchestration of the pop song featuring opera singers had a somewhat indefinite quality. As an encore, the performers presented the cheerful aria Libiamo ne’ lieti calici from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata. Surprisingly, this was the most successful part of the performance, conveying a genuine musical expression of joy and celebration.
One of the evening’s major weaknesses was the sound system, which repeatedly worked against the performers despite their best efforts. Many of the pieces were arrangements that were not properly listed in the printed programme (Antonín Dvořák certainly did not write for electric guitar). Generally speaking, the second half of the programme lacked dramaturgical continuity. Despite the singers’ excellent technique and the musicians’ acceptable performance, the artistic expression was lost in such a presentation.
Performers:
Štefan Margita – tenor
Jana Šrejma Kačírková – soprano
Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jan Kučera
Programme:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Don Giovanni, KV 527
‘Overture’
Duet between Donna Anna (‘Che giuramento, oh Dei!’) and Don Ottavio (‘Fuggi, crudele, fuggi!’) from Act 1
Donna Anna’s aria ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ from Act 1
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24
‘Polonaise’ from Act 3
Lensky’s aria ‘Kuda, kuda vy udalilis’ from Act 2
Giuseppe Verdi
Otello
Desdemona’s prayer ‘Ave Maria, piena di grazia’ from Act 4
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Marriage of Figaro, KV 492
‘Overture’
Franz Schubert
Ave Maria (Ellens Gesang III [Hymn to the Virgin], Op. 52/6, D 839, arr. Lukáš Sommer
Bedřich Smetana
The Bartered Bride, T 93
‘Skočná’ from Act 3
George Gershwin
Porgy and Bess
‘Summertime’ (Clara), aria from Act 1 (Scene 1), arr. Jan Kučera
‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ (Sporting Life), aria from Act 2 (Scene 2)
Antonín Dvořák
Rusalka, Op. 114 B 203
‘Polonaise’ (Festive Music) from Act 2
Rusalka’s aria ‘Moon in the Deep Sky’ from Act 1
Riccardo Cocciante
Notre-Dame de Paris
‘Les temps des cathédrales’
Lucio Dalla
‘Caruso’, Czech lyrics: Zdeněk Borovec
Saturday, 22 August, at 8 pm, Great Courtyard of Špilberk Castle
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