Review: Liederabend at Auckland Town Hall

A liederabend is a brave venture and Thursday's song recital by Simon O'Neill and Aivale Cole deserved more support than our city's concert-going community gave it.

Thanks to Auckland Opera Studio's initiative, we were able to experience, in a reasonably intimate venue, that coming together of poetry and music which is at the heart of the Romantic spirit.

Dichterliebe is one of the masterpieces of its genre, a cycle of 16 songs in which the young Schumann publicly adored his beloved Clara through the delicate and sometimes ironic poetry of Heinrich Heine.

Pianist Terence Dennis beguiled us from his first phrase but O'Neill, reading from the score, resorted too often to the high-power vocalising that has made his name on the international operatic circuit.

Nevertheless, as one might expect from such a musicianly singer, there were many moments when the tenor did catch the innermost sentiments of the music, such as in Aus meinen Tranen spriessen, or a rapturous Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen.

Strauss's Four Lieder of Opus 27 had Morgen showing how beautifully O'Neill can spin out a line, although the breathless passions of the final Cecily had climaxes that came close to being shouted.

Aivale Cole, perfectly at home in the idyllic dreamscapes of Korngold's Opus 22 Lieder, showed us why she won April's Lexus Song Quest. However, most of the audience were there to hear her in Strauss's Four Last Songs.

It is difficult not to succumb to the warmth of this soprano's voice. Cole wended through Strauss's fearsome lines with utter confidence, effortlessly catching the rippling smiles in September, despite the intrusion of a bleating mobile phone at one point. One's heart went out to the valiant Dennis trying to evoke a Straussian orchestral palette on his Steinway, especially in the bare, bleak chords of Im Abendtrot.

Encores were operatic and O'Neill was at his storming best in two extracts from Wagner's Die Walkure. After a thrilling solo turn, he was joined by Cole in the great duet of sibling love that ends the opera's first act.