Contemplation
Opera Arias and Lieder by Gounod, Mozart, Rodgers et al
Huw Montague Rendall (baritone); Orchestra l’Opéra de Rouen Haute-Normandie/Ben Glassberg
Warner Classics 2173236378 72:04 mins
Clip: Britten: Billy Budd, Act 2 - 'Look Through the Port' (Huw Montague Rendall et al)
The first thing one notices in this wide-ranging recital from rising baritone Huw Montague Rendall is his seriousness of purpose: obvious, for instance, in an extract from the title-role of Ambroise Thomas’s still underrated Hamlet – a work he has already sung on stage.
He possesses the vocal and dramatic range for the part, as well as varied dynamics: his soft singing is tremendously effective. There’s a similar sensitive appreciation of text as well as of the shaping of Gounod’s line in Valentin’s aria from Faust, his finely textured tone underlying an appreciable interpretation of a piece sometimes merely delivered in big but bland mode.
The 17 items on the album run from Mozart to Korngold, Britten to Richard Rodgers, Messager to Mahler – in the latter case taking in a complete song-cycle (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen), a performance notable for its subtlety and observation. In Frank’s nostalgic ‘Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen’ from Korngold’s Die tote Stadt the sound is glorious when he opens his voice up, while his final note is sheer magic.
He is especially eloquent, unsurprisingly, in his native language, as in the protagonist’s contemplative soul-searching before his execution in Britten’s Billy Budd: but he misses nothing, either, in Mercutio’s delicious Queen Mab scherzo from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, in Duparc, in his vital and complex Count in Figaro or in Don Giovanni’s honeyed Serenade.
There’s also top-rank work from the orchestra and conductor; a real collaboration has taken place, and the results are quite something. George Hall