Classical review: Luca Pisaroni and Justus Zeyen, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

By CAROL MAIN
Published on 24/08/2012 14:55

Balancing up the soprano recital heard earlier in the week as part of the Queen’s Hall series, the bass-baritone voice of Luca Pisaroni, Venezuelan born and Italian raised, was also keenly anticipated as a voice so far unknown to Edinburgh Festival audiences.

Luca Pisaroni and Justus Zeyen

Queen’s Hall

Star rating: * * *

His performance yesterday morning, with pianist Justus Zeyen, was one which clearly fell into two halves.

In the first, it was interesting to hear Schubert turn to Italian texts in his Drei Gesänge, composed for an Italian friend. While Pisaroni undoubtedly has a richly rounded and powerful, molten voice, consistent in tone from low bass timbres to the higher baritone register, he was hampered by lack of support from Zeyen at the piano. Too often heavy-handed and without subtlety, he made little of Rossini’s delightfully elegant and witty salon pieces, or a selection of six settings by Meyerbeer, making it difficult for Pisaroni to get below the surface of the songs.

Liszt in the second half was a transformation. Much more together as a duo, Pisaroni and Zeyen were well-focussed, with the Tre sonetti di Petrarca reflecting the heartache of Petrach’s celebrated love poems and Die Vätergruft providing evidence of why Pisaroni is a star on the operatic stage.