Despite his youth, Xabier Anduaga He had a short-lived career as a tenor, and for good reason. The program he presented seemed to us to be appreciated, on the one hand, because it was mainly composed of songs or known authors; but it was also … practically suited to a singer who feels particularly comfortable in the upper register of their register and armed with a exceptional volume.
But these two characteristics, which any singer can desire, condition him in one way or another to the extent that he must choose a repertoire in which he can fundamentally evolve in the said upper region. And even in this aspect, the high notes were hit only twice: Donizetti’s “Fra poco” (“Lucia”) and “La donna è mobile” (“Rigoletto”). What happens is that its dynamism is such – in addition to having a full-bodied and robust sound – that all the endings were upsetting, as if they were greater than what they were ultimately written for.
We’ve seen it before in Bellini’s “La Ricordanza”, where just after a few bars his volume would explode and if he were to turn it down at some point – we still don’t leave the same piece – around the passage he would go into falsetto. This was a constant throughout the recital, the few times she fell to middle voice.
The problem is also that he homogenized everything he sang, combining styles, composers or the different expressive accents of the texts, even if his diction is excellent. What seemed important to him was this expansive dynamic like we have rarely seen, finished in a sharp finale. Moreover, the aforementioned high notes of ‘La donna…’ are preceded by some looped agilities that we would have liked to sound more marked and defined.
Maciej Pikulski (piano) and Xabier Anduaga (tenor)
We quickly realized that the pianist was right: to know exactly what nuances the singer had to express, we just had to listen Pikulski: foreign in this aspect to the gale of Anduaga, he marked in a masterly way the nuances indicated in the score.
Since he placed his hands on the piano, we have heard a clear, transparent, elegant, relaxed sound, giving each note its specific weight, in a deployment of individuality and conjunction, in complete independence of the hands, because we were able to follow them in the “Concert paraphrase of Rigoletto, S 434” by Lisztin which usually the “voice” remained in the left hand, which “sang” to the melody of the quartet of the last act of the opera, but with absolute tranquility, crossing a thousand times with the diabolical scales of the right hand which traveled the keyboard from part to part. And the same with him Schubert’s “Standchen”also paraphrased by Lisztin which every time the famous melody was repeated it seemed as if it was being sung. And what about the exquisite care given to the pedals, decisive in an author like Liszt, where the textures are often confused and muddled.
It is true that in the three songs of Reynaldo Hahn (‘À Chloris’, ‘L’heure exquisite’ and ‘If my verses had wings’) Anduaga had a more controlled singing, although he did not forget the falsetto changes (‘The time’), as in ‘red flower’. “It just can’t be.”of his compatriotSorozábal He handled it with true splendor, and it was perhaps the most obvious example of a splendid ending with highs that seem more than they are.
We return to claim the surtitles. It is not possible that theaters that do not even have a website with the current programming can offer them to us by system and that the Maestranza only thinks about saving money.
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