Exciting Young Singers Need Polish

It’s no wonder that San Francisco Performances’ intimate Italian salon at San Francisco’s Hotel Rex sold out two weeks in advance. The double bill included tenor Alek Shrader, the Merola alumnus and 2008 winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, whose rendition of Donizetti’s “Ah mes amis!” from La fille du Regiment was seen internationally in the movie The Audition. Sharing the billing was baritone Austin Kness. Another Merola alum and current Adler Fellow, Kness was a vocal and histrionic knockout as the ravenous seducer in Catherine Malfitano’s 2008 Merola production of Don Giovanni.

The all-Italian repertoire, on the other hand was a questionable draw. The mixture of songs by Rossini, Bellini, Mercadante, Liszt, Tosti, and de Curtis, augmented by a duet from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, certainly had its appeal. But as a showcase of a singer’s art, it required nowhere near the subtlety that German lieder and French chanson demand.

Shrader immediately made his mark in the opening duet, "I Marinai” (The Mariners) from Rossini’s Les soirées musicales. His delivery was strong and incisive, the tone gleaming and of considerable heft. As thunder rumbled and wind hissed, his thrilling, burnished tone projected a convincing urgency. And when Shrader softened and sweetened the sound, as in Liszt’s “Pace non trovo” and the other songs from Tre sonetti di Petrarca (Three sonnets of Petrarch), or displayed a perfect trill, the effect was quite beautiful and gratifying. As he sang passionately and heroically in “La serenata di marinaro” (The sailor's serenade) from Rossini’s Les soirées italiennes, it was hard to deny his greatness.

His perfect tone did not, however, consistently extend to high notes. While a YouTube video of Shrader singing “Ah mes amis!” this past July finds him hitting the aria's nine high Cs squarely and with seeming abandon, his upper register was not in peak form at the Rex. Even when he hit the high notes spot on and without flaw, which was maybe a quarter of the time, they sounded constricted with either less or equal volume than the notes immediately beneath them. The characteristic bloom of many an Italian tenor was seldom in evidence. Nor was Bellini’s La ricordanza (The remembrance), which uses the same exquisite melody as Bellini's "Qui la voce" from the opera I puritani, as ravishing as it might have been. While Shrader certainly has the pipes, the bel canto elegance has yet to come.

Baritone hit and miss

Kness was less consistent. When he sang full out, the voice was compelling and colorful and the low range, save for the bottom notes, was resonant and beautiful. But when he softened his tone or attempted to express anything other than heroic force, his singing lacked urgency. When he tried to soften below mezzo forte in the two selections from Rossini’s Musique anodine, he sounded alternately tired and frayed.

In the opening duet, Kness was perhaps trying to create the calm, confident foil to Shrader’s wind-whipped mariner, but he got louder and softer without sustaining interest. The impression was only reinforced by his inconsistent interpretations of two Neapolitan songs by Tosti and the familiar Non ti scordar di me (Don’t forget me) by de Curtis. The lack of vitality in softer singing was partially a result of monochromatic enunciation that, while clear, lacked the idiomatic color and love of language of a true Neapolitan stylist. I recall none of these problems in his exciting Don Giovanni, so he may have been handicapped by the need to glance at his music throughout the evening.

In the finale, the duet “Un poco dell’opera” from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, and the equally animated encore, "All'idea di quel metallo" from Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, the two men were at their best. Singing full voice, Shrader nailed one of his high notes perfectly. Even if he skimmed the other, his singing was wonderful. Kness transformed into the archetypal swaggering male, baring his teeth and biting grin while singing full out with cocky confidence. Their combined impact elicited an enthusiastic standing ovation.