Reviews

 

"The 29-year old giant ranks as an exceptional talent, who evokes memories of everyone from Caruso to Domingo – including Pavarotti. With a decidedly individual timbre and a magnificent legato, he fascinated the audience and effortlessly and flawlessly filled the Philharmonie with vocal power. His voice goes straight to the heart and takes us right back to another century."

Dorothea Husslein, Münchner Merkur, 12 March 2007

 

 

 

 

REVIEWS: RECITALS & CONCERTS


Reviews of various recitals, concerts and gala.

 

 

"PUCCINI E PASTA"

Puccini e Pasta with Joseph Calleja,
musical-culinary taste treats



10 March 2007
Gasteig CULTURAL CENTRE, MÜnchen, Germany


Joseph Calleja, tenor
tATIANA lISNIC, soprano
Münchner Sinfoniker / Heiko Mathias FÖrster


 

Der Neue Merker Kritiken

 

The title “Puccini e Pasta with Joseph Calleja, musical-culinary taste treats” was the way the promoter advertised for his concert in the Philharmonie on the Gasteig. The tempting announcement appealed to a sizable audience in the best of moods on a Saturday evening. The great hall of the Philharmonie was almost completely full. The special idea behind this concert was that before and after the concert as well as in the one-hour interval, Italian food and beverages would be served in all the lobbies (“Puccini – included in the ticket price – Pasta – extra”) If the service was not hassle­free, and a couple of singers dressed as gondoliers belted out nerve-killing Italian songs during the meal, that still didn’t interfere with everyone’s expectant mood. The opposite would have been a shame, because the audience was soon presented with a high-level concert with a richly varied composition of musical numbers. Part of the evening proved to be somewhat deceptively packaged, because Joseph Calleja wasn’t the only vocalist on the program, but rather shared it with soprano Tatiana Lisnic, and Puccini wasn’t the only composer; honor was also paid to Verdi, Donizetti and the Brazilian Antonio Carlos Gomes (1836 – 1896). The MUNICH SYMPHONY under the direction of HEIKO MATHIAS FÖRSTER also offered the usual overtures and intermezzi invariably served up on such evenings with esprit and sometimes a fairly stolid sound, but they accompanied the singers sensitively and melodiously. Rumanian artist TATIANA LISNIC stuck to the evening’s composer with three arias by Puccini (“Ch’il bel sogno” from La rondine along with “Quando m’en vó soletta” and “Si, mi chiamanó Mimì” from La Bohème) and enchanted us with her lyric soprano, which filled the big hall without any forcing, and with spellbinding musicality. The eagerly awaited highlights of the program were the appearances of JOSEPH CALLEJA, the meanwhile world­renowned 29-year-old tenor from Malta. Anyone who had experienced Calleja two years ago in his high-level aria recital in Munich’s Herkulessaal as a shy almost awkward-looking singer was now surprised by an open-hearted artist, radiating optimism, who immediately established a rapport with the audience and clearly enjoyed the welcoming applause. As early as his first aria, “Recondita armonia” from Tosca it was already clear that his voice has become more masculine and somewhat darker, yet he has retained his very appealing soft-hued and clear upper register. “Una furtiva lagrima” (L’elisir d’amore) and “Donna non vidi mai” (Manon Lescaut) justifiably evoked cheers as high points of the evening. His new sovereignty and the amazing stage experience for one of such tender years – after all, he recently débuted at the Met – made the duet “Caro elisir... Esulti pur la bharbara” (again from L’elisir d’amore) with the charming Tatiana Lisnic a vocal and dramatic taste treat. With “O soave fanciulla”, the final piece on the official program, the two finally took the audience right to the heavens of bel canto. With wild enthusiasm, the audience demanded and got four encores from the singers and musicians, winding up with a dream-like performance of the notturno (Duet: Norina/Ernesto) from Don Pasquale, “Torni a mi dir che m’ami”.

Helga Schmöger – Der Neue Merker Kritiken

 

 


Munich Abendzeitung

Joseph Calleja at “Puccini e Pasta” – Sings for his Supper – with his wife Tatiana Lisnic in the Gasteig

Did he have a clue what was going on all around his performance – that the Teutonic stronghold Gasteig had been converted into a stand-up (queue-up) Italian bistro, and penne, panna cotta & co. were accompanying his concert? That a couple of signori in striped gondolier shirts and straw hats were out front caterwauling green‑white-and-red warhorses like “Volaaaaaaaare” through the lobbies of the Philharmonie? Not bloody likely, although the darling of today’s star tenors seems to be a bit of a trencherman himself. Calleja served up the delicately spiced favorite chestnuts of bel canto. In easily digestible tidbits, of course. The man from Malta certainly has a full operatic cornucopia of treats to choose from, as he effortlessly ladled out a tasty menu drawn from the hit charts ranging from Donizetti (“Una furtiva lagrima”) to Puccini (“Recondita armonia”). If not every top note was the soul of purity or a light chiffon veil lay over the voice, this is quite beside the point. Even before his first entrance, his wife felt the lyrical urge to match forces with this vocal colossus with her tender-sweet soprano. This made like “O soave fanciulla” the well‑calculated exception in this “best-of” rendition of the usual spaghetti operas. Everything was delicious, apart from the pasta. Heiko Mathias Förster and the Munich Symphony also cooked up a platter of delight that never lost its al dente tang – in sharp contrast to the noodles in Pommery sauce garnished with a soupçon of salmon. When the carpaccio and the plate emerged from the oil fog of the refrigerator counter proclaiming “Together Forever and Never to Part”, this was also beside the point. And perhaps missing out on the tiramisu might have been a blessing.

Christa Nigg, Munich Abendzeitung, 12 March 2007

 


tz München

In the hall, Heiko Mathias Förster and his always transparent and sensitive Munich Symphony delivered a launch made to measure with a concentrated performance of the overture to Verdi’s “La forza del destino”, complete with wisely stressed pauses. But it took Joseph Calleja to remind us of a sunny southern summer evening. His voice may have sounded a bit tinny at first, but his gleaming patent-leather tenor is dynamically downright inexhaustible as it effortlessly filled the Philharmonie with Donizetti and, primarily, Puccini. The finer gloss, however, came from his partner Tatiana Lisnic, especially in “Si, mi chiamano Mimì” from “La Bohème”. The party-passionate public really got its money’s worth, and not just in the inevitable “Traviata” duet “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” as a final encore.

Michael Brommer, tz Munich, 12 March 2007




Münchner Merkur

The Maltese star tenor’s vocal art could be enjoyed in bite-sized snacks embedded in overtures, intermezzi and arias from Rumanian soprano Tatiana Lisnic. She likewise thrilled the audience with a bright lyric soprano and a velvety middle register. Calleja started off with Cavaradossi’s short aria “Recondita armonia” from Puccini’s “Tosca”. The 29-year old giant ranks as an exceptional talent, who evokes memories of everyone from Caruso to Domingo – including Pavarotti. With a decidedly individual timbre and a magnificent legato, he fascinated the audience and effortlessly and flawlessly filled the Philharmonie with vocal power. His voice goes straight to the heart and takes us right back to another century. We then got to hear some more from him in Nemorino’s aria “Una furtiva lagrima” from Donizetti’s “L’elisir d’amore”. He fully proved his radiant power in Chevalier des Grieux’s aria “Donna non vidi mai” from Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut”. A stroke of fortune for the evening: Calleja and Lisnic work together frequently and thus performed their duets with homogeneity and charm.

Dorothea Husslein, Münchner Merkur, 12 March 2007




Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich

But Joseph Calleja and Tatiana Lisnic were anything but invisible in the Philharmonie, but rather sang and acted the “modest and heartfelt emotional remembrance of emotion between the world-renowned tenor and a crystal-clear-sweet little soprano” from “La Bohème” at the end of the Italian evening with captivating beauty and vivacity. The other duets could also hardly be outdone in radiance and sensitive-natural expression. The 20-year old Maltese artist Calleja with his glowingly beautiful, delicately vibrating and unmistakably timbred voice is a rare phenomenon among the young tenors of today, seeming, as he does, to have come from what we believed to be a long‑vanished world of song. Tatiana Lisnic as well – sometimes a bit crowded out in the duets by Calleja’s joyfully passionate tenoreal power – was able to unfold all the magic of Puccinian bel canto with her lyrically sparkling, but also well‑carrying voice, which opened up to a flute-like forte. Heiko Mathias Förster accompanied on a high level and also contributed the unavoidable instrumental pieces in the form of the overtures to Verdi’s “Forza”, Donizetti’s “Fille du régiment” and Antonio Carlos Gomes’s “Il Guarany” along with the intermezzo from Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut”.

Klaus Kahlschmid, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, 13 March 2007


 

 

 

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CONCERT "PASTA E PUCCINI," GASTEIG CULTURAL CENTRE
Munich, Germany
10 March 2007

Joseph Calleja ·Nataliya Kovalova
Münchner Symphoniker / Heiko Mathias Förster