THE IRISH TIMES
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Monday 25th September 2006

John McCormack tribute at the NCH, Dublin
John Allen


The John McCormack tribute at the NCH on Saturday was a hybrid event that included projected stills, silent and sound film footage, and the tenor's 1924 recording of Come my beloved. We also had a gentle anecdotal commentary, deftly delivered by Gordon Ledbetter, and 15 minutes of speeches. During these we were told about a proposed Elizabeth O'Kane statue and a €100,000 vocal bursary to be donated by the IAWS Group.

There were three vocal soloists, tenor Anthony Kearns, soprano Elizabeth Woods and baritone Giuseppe Deligia. Woods and Kearns sang two nicely-balanced duets, Parigi, o cara from La traviata and Franck's Panis angelicus, and Deligia joined the tenor for a truncated and rather perfunctory version of the popular duet from Bizet's Les pecheurs de perles.

In her own right, the soprano offered an impassioned rendering of Wally's Ebben n'andro lontano and the baritone an underpowered Avant de quitter ces lieux from Faust.

Kearns, who had the lion's share of the programme, began with flowing accounts of Faust's cavatina and Nemorino's Una furtiva lagrima.

Here, and elsewhere in the programme, his subtle tonal shading and judicious use of well-supported head voice complemented an exciting top register.

But these artistic good manners were undermined by conductor Robert Houlihan, who paid scant attention to matters of vocal nuance and frequently allowed the Irish Film Orchestra to drown the singers.

Worse still, in the section devoted to songs, he used pretentious and overloud orchestral arrangements that not only drew attention to themselves, but short-changed the vocalists in matters of rhythmic and tonal support.

In the event, the most satisfactory offerings were Rachmaninov's To the children and Handel's Where e're you walk, in which Kearns was partnered on piano by Patrick Healy, and a ravishing She moved through the fair, performed by Woods and harpist Andreja Maljia.