Review of a recent concert in the  local press 

                Local Choir on a Whistle Stop Tour through the world of Opera!

With the advent of Spring comes change – the warmth of sunnier days ahead, the dark undertones of Winter still below the surface, unexpected changes occurring with dramatic effect – Opera Favourites,  presented by the Pakefield Singers at the delightful St Mary’s Church, Halesworth, had all this in spades.

Conducted by Vetta Wise whose operatic pedigree requires no explanation, Opera Favourites, described as ‘a concert presenting popular choruses and solos from the world of opera’, did just that. A large audience graced the church to hear a programme of familiar and unfamiliar works – a Classic FM playlist with the expectation of the professional detail of a Radio 3 broadcast.

This whistle-stop operatic tour took us through a journey of differing emotions, language and characterisation. With a staged concert, even with excellent programme notes, it is easy to lose the context of an aria within the operatic plot. Soprano Katalin Prentice was able to provide both heart wrenching emotion in Purcell’s aria Dido’s Lament and coquettish flirtation as Violetta in Verdi’s Brindisi (La Traviata). Evan Ruth and Chris Upton interacted beautifully in a wonderfully pure performance of the famous duet from The Pearl Fishers, sung unusually in English. Not to be upstaged, the chorus provided comic interaction with each other as wedding guests in a less well known opera by Donizetti (Lucia di Lammermoor).

There were those tingling moments (described by neuroscientists as a bodily reaction to something unexpected) – one being the emotive performance of the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (Nabucco). There was wonderful buoyancy in the rise and fall of the vocal line and the ending was pure magic – a pianissimo suspended for as long as time itself…….

A delightful Johann Strauss Finale (Die Fledermaus)  showed all the strengths of the Pakefield Singers – a lightness and lilt in the singing with the seamless passing of phrase between soloists, chorus and solo ensemble keeping a natural ebb and flow. The warmth of applause showed the audience appreciation of the evening, with a special cheer for organist Tim Patient, who not only set the scene at the beginning of each half with organ transcriptions of an opera favourite, provided sympathetic accompaniment for each number, but would also surely have played the missing anvils in the Anvil Chorus if he had a spare pair of hands!  The concert was dedicated to Shirley Smith, who was an active committee member of Pakefield Singers and an experienced alto.  She would surely have been tapping her feet and singing along.                                                                                                                       Stella Calver