What: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Where: Auckland Town Hall
KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's last visit of the year featured what should have been killer box office - music director Pietari Inkinen and bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes, fresh from Opera Australia's Billy Budd.
Yet too many empty seats meant that too many Aucklanders missed hearing a virtuoso orchestra in top form and experiencing the charismatic Rhodes in secular mode (last year, with the APO, he wore the mantle of Elijah).
On Friday, Verdi's La Forza del destino Overture brought the anticipation of theatre to come and, at the other end of this programme, two Strauss symphonic poems offered drama with no orchestral effect spared.
Although Till Eulenspiegel has an overly nudging narrative, it gleamed with Inkinen's attention to detail and the utter clarity of even the most complex passages.
Strauss's Don Juan was an explosion of energy, especially in the pure musical testosterone of its Allegro molto con brio sections; indeed, one would not have been surprised had Errol Flynn dashed on stage, rapier in hand.
Rhodes showed brio and versatility, moving easily from Rossini patter song and tender Bellini bel canto to an insinuating Catalogue Aria from Don Giovanni.
He strode back on stage, orchestra playing, for a thrilling Bizet Toreador Song, although a soft-focus arrangement of O Waly Waly, with the singer noticeably ill-at-ease when keys shifted on him mid-song, was a let-down.
Saturday opened with David Farquhar's Ring Round the Moon, as piquant as ever, but music with more historical significance than substance, even if the teasing dissonances of its world-weary Tango still inveigle.
Most irritatingly, Farquhar's miniatures were clapped number by number, with a handful of over-enthusiastic souls even breaking into Stravinsky's Petrouchka at one point with unwanted applause.
Petrouchka was spectacular, as was expected after Inkinen's adrenalin-charged Rite of Spring last year.
It was not all slash-and-dazzle, either; the wet-nurses' gentle toccata and a gruff, lumbering bear dance both made their point.
Stravinsky's original, subtle ending was also much appreciated (six years ago, under David Atherton, it ended with the composer's later brasher flourish).
Saturday's songbook came from Handel and Mozart.
Rhodes and Michael Kirgan were in breezy accord for The Trumpet Shall Sound, the singer was suitably sonorous in Ombra mai fu, although the florid writing in Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries did not sound as effortless as it might have.
Mozart's Per questa bella mano had principal bass Hiroshi Ikematsu contributing a feathery obbligato, although Rhodes seemed distinctly uncomfortable when the aria descended to basso regions.
Nevertheless, the charisma returned in a striding Non piu andrai and Don Giovanni's Serenade, with harpsichord tinkling away for mandolin and Rhodes dispensing effortless phrasing and irresistible charm.
