Auckland Philharmonia at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

The Auckland Philharmonia opened its 2004 Vero Premier Series with one of the casting coups of the season: the return of Angela Brown.

Last year, in the orchestra's Puccini concert, the American soprano single-handedly created a fan base and, once again, the audience was not disappointed. Every offering drew ecstatic applause.

It is not often that concert-goers can have the luxury of experiencing such a magnificent voice in our concert halls and Brown introduced herself spectacularly with a gleaming Dich, teure Halle from Tannhauser.

There were more thrills to be had in two Richard Strauss selections although it was here that the singer's vibrato seemed a mite excessive for so young a voice. Still, this was a minor trade-off alongside the rapturous characterisation of Zweite Braut nacht from Die Agyptische Helena, so vividly conveyed that one wouldn't have been surprised if Menelaus had entered stage left and continued the drama. The introduction of music stand and score undermined some of the impact of Es gibt ein Reich from Ariadne auf Naxos and the final Wagnerian Liebestod, although the latter did reveal the sensuous, burnished beauty of Brown's voice when it is in a more relaxed mode.

The orchestra has started its new year in splendid form under Marco Zuccarini but the Italian conductor has always brought out the best in the players.

The Tannhauser Overture was unruffled in its grandeur; the Tristan und Isolde Prelude, delivered only after the maestro had asked the audience to take this piece of music more seriously, combined momentum with a palette of shifting colours, marred only by some exposed cellos.

Brown was not the only artist to receive Bravos; there had been Bravos for the conductor too, after the Brahms First Symphony that opened the programme.

I suspected Zuccarini's Brahms would be memorable. After all, this is a man who, on previous visits, has been able to find substance and raw emotion where many might be content with easy lyricism.

His Brahms was magnificent; full and rich in sound without sacrificing textural finesse. Particularly welcome on a humid summer evening were spruce tempi and finely gauged lines, especially in its Andante sostenuto.