Dear all,
Just in case you haven't already read it. Here you have an review from a Portuguese woman in Pekin (Thanks to Rosamunda for finding it!
)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]I wrote a quick translation, omitting the parts that we already know.
Enjoy
:
PJ provoked an undocumented fact in Pekin: the audience was in an absolute silence during the performance and at the end a huge applause fulfilled the Concert Hall. He came back three times because after two hours the audience refused to leave. The Chinese audience talks, chews, searches for things in plastic bags, gets up, sits down, to get it straight that is a different kind of audience with other kind of tradition. Maybe thanks to the Pekin’s Opera tradition where men used to sing female roles and behave in a more “dolce” way (today both sexes do female roles), the Chinese enjoy better a countertenor as if they were watching just one of their traditional singers. I believe that because after four years here attending the city theaters I finally understood that this kind of impolite behavior (in our eyes) is because of the awkwardness they feel before Occidental Opera, the same we feel with Kabuki or Kunqu Opera.
But today, I’m here to talk about Jaroussky not about oriental art. Bla, bla, bla about his career. He decided to embrace his more delicate way, which remind us that real men are not only strong but also sensitive. His voice is nothing like a women’s voice, but it can also be sensual and fierce. His appearance is so touching than I feel like having him I my lap. He is like an ambiguous angel, like Ariel in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. Listening to an angel is like being in the Paradise for a few hours, with the sound-track of the Venice Baroque Orchestra, which is not only a very nice one but also a very brilliant bunch of musicians.
Philippe talks in a regular voice not in his lyric one, but when he sings with such ease and emotion seems that this voice should be the more natural for his daily life. That’s an angel voice, the one which penetrates the soul of the audience and makes us believe whatever the singer wants us to believe, even when you don’t get much of Italian. He also can sing in his tenor voice but he thinks it’s difficult for him.
Jaroussky is linked to the history of Castrati (there is a little abstract about castrati)
PJ took me to a another reality level in Pekin Concert Hall, I mean a spiritual one, something that even José Carreras couldn’t achieve some years ago when I lived in Seoul. As I stated, I attend, write, read, direct and breath theater day and night, but Jaroussky performance (and VBO too) touched me in a way I haven’t experimented in a very long time.
He was extraordinary and surprising. His voice tone is unique, but the most admiring aspect is his way of “devouring” in a sweet manner the whole audience. That’s why I think he is like an angel who passes through the Hell in Earth, in those days when nobody can actually breathe in Pekin because of the pollution. Thank you so much for your trip, Jaroussky!
