(Opinion) The alluring mezzo-soprano, Isabel Leonard must have one of the world’s largest troves of frequent flyer miles. She has a repertory to match.
She is everywhere, singing everything from Mozart to Bernstein, Ravel to de Falla.
And she truly lives up to her outstanding reputation as São Paulo concertgoers were extremely fortunate to discover when she flew in at the last moment to replace the popular Latvian singer Elīna Garanča who had to cancel because of illness but promises an early return.
Even the short notice didn’t prevent her from giving a truly stunning and memorable Mozarteum debut concert last Tuesday evening at Sala São Paulo.
Not since the Mozarteum brought Elīna, and the American mezzo soprano, Frederica von Stade to São Paulo some years ago, have we had the chance to hear an internationally recognized mezzo whose vocal range is so great and whose mastery of nuance allows her to perform an exceptionally wide repertory.
Tuesday evening was a bravura mix of Mozart, Massenet, Rossini, De Falla, Bizet, and Lara.
Ms. Leonard has that special talent for engaging the audience with a gesture, a smile, or a pause in her phrasing, as in an aria from O Barbeiro de Sevilha, where the pause was just long enough to allow the audience to share her smile.
Especially interesting and perfect for her voice were De Falla’s ‘Sete canções populares espanholas’, and from Bizet’s Carmen, the popular ‘Habanera’ and ‘Seguidilla’.
Isabel brings a truly special quality that never fights with the music but always enriches it.
The ever-changing rhythms she creates, like gusts of wind, seem to chase each other with abandon until out of breath, they become calm, and the individual melodic notes take over.
If her voice is sometimes more fine wool than cashmere, it is particularly well suited to the Spanish composers she seems to favor.
She was well supported by the Academic Orchestra Mozarteum Brasileiro, under the guest conductor Constantine Orbelian whose exuberance brought out the best in this orchestra which gets better and better with each hearing.
‘Music’ is without definition. How we listen to it is extremely personal.
For most, as we hear it, the song or instrumental composition resonates in our mind and our expectation is that the phrase we are hearing will have a comfortable tonal resolution: it will ‘feel’ right. Perhaps that’s why the repertoire of Ms. Leonard’s concert however limited due to its last-minute nature, felt so right.
She made us feel the music, not think about it.
It takes a fine concert to remind us how much more exciting it is to hear a superb live performance than to listen to even the best recorded or streamed music.
In the concert hall there is always a sense of anticipation in the air when the musicians take their places on the stage and when the first violinist ritually plays a note to be sure everyone is in tune and when the conductor finally mounts the podium, and the concert begins.
It’s real and we can even make allowance for the inevitable audience noise, coughs, etc. When we are in a concert hall as wonderful as Sala São Paulo or even on the street hearing real people making real music, we engage with it in a way that no recording can ever equal.
And if the concert is of the rich quality of this one, then it’s pure magic.
Isabel Leonard sang three leads at the Met in New York last year. And she has collected three Grammy awards, most recently in the Best Classical Compendium category for Thomas’s “From the Diary Anne Frank and Meditations on Rilke”.
Her fine recordings are worth listening to until she is warmly welcomed back to Mozarteum with ample time for preparation when she can sing a full program and a wider range of works.
I can’t wait.