Review | Renée Fleming enchants, Hong Kong Philharmonic excels in evening of Barber, Shostakovich, Schubert and Wagner
- Peerless American soprano and newly crowned Orchestra of the Year shine in a programme full of emotion
- Fleming was at her expressive best in Samuel Barber’s evocation of summer in the Deep South, and orchestra was brilliant in joyful Shostakovich symphony
This emotion-packed concert by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under music director Jaap van Zweden was just the tonic Hong Kong needed.
After some tentativeness in the opening passages for woodwind, the orchestra quickly settled into its stride, producing a sound that was fine and rich and an account that pulsated with intensity, guided by van Zweden’s masterful phrasing.
Fleming showed her poetic poise in the Schubert songs An Silvia (To Sylvia) – a serenade based on a poem by Shakespeare – and Max Reger’s arrangement of Im Abendrot (At Dusk), albeit the orchestral accompaniment was too much in places for her light soprano voice.
Britten’s arrangement of Die Forelle (The Trout) was especially delightful, as the clarinet pair cheerfully bubbled along with Fleming’s nimble voice like “the fickle trout dashing around like an arrow” that poet Daniel Schubart describes.