Flower Drum Song
Was out with ryanfoster. We caught “Nancy Yuen in Concert: For Love” at the Victoria Concert Hall. The main draw of the evening was the Four Last Songs by Strauss and arias by Mozart and Verdi. The rest of the programme was not specifically listed but we thought it would be a safe enough bet.
When we got to the VCH, the place was sparsely populated as we were there a tad early. We wandered around for a bit and joined the sprinkling of people watching a performance of the SSO on a Philips Plasma screen TV. Later, we went up to the second floor and received our copies of the evening’s programme which we duly idly flipped through. The programme was rather amateurishly done up, not unlike the annual books churned out by school editorial boards. Why, there were even those “With compliments” pages from sponsors et al, with the requisite curvy wavy borders and flowing italic script et al. It even smelled the same! We perused the biography write-ups and were suitably impressed that the conductor for the evening, Samtow Sucharitkul was “educated at Eton and Cambridge”. However, when he made his appearance, it was sort of a letdown considering he looked like a crossbreed between a beaver and a hedgehog, and made me think “I am a little teapot, short and stout” to myself. He was also in need of help from the Fashion Police with his metallic blue satin waistcoat… I guess they were correct when saying never to judge a book by its cover.
Nancy Yuen came on stage in a strapless dull olive-greenish-gold gown with a crinkled bodice. The moment she came on, one name immediately came to mind - Koh Chieng Mun - which I deigned to share with ryanfoster, which effectively sent him into spasms trying to reign in his giggles and abstain from snorting. Well, excuse me, but she DID look like KCM, complete with a serious case of the “cutes” from time to time. They opened with the Countess’ two arias from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and I must say I was impressed by the Siam Philharmonic Orchestra as they managed to pull off a rather convincing Mozart sound especially the strings. Yuen managed to deliver the goods, having the requisite “tone” for the Countess, though she seemed to be “creating” the sound by deliberately shaping and “rounding” her articulation. Then again, she has to work hard in an effort to live up to the likes of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Kiri Te Kanawa...
The orchestra then went it alone with Barber’s Adagio for Strings which wasn’t particularly captivating and had the both of us in a stupor waiting for the Four Last Songs up next. We had noticed earlier that in the programme, the song order seemed to be in disarray, and wondered if it was a deliberate decision (and if so, why?) or a misprint. As it turned out, she did indeed sing the work in the “wrong” order printed in the programme. Her German diction was convincing and again she delivered the goods. She sparkled in florid passages and high notes, but her chest voice was a little suspect. ryanfoster was in knots the whole evening, disturbed by her use of chest voice. She didn’t have the necessary support to project her chest voice and when she ventured into that territory, he wondered how the audience at the back of the hall could hear her. As it were, we had seats in the third row and she was already being drowned out by the orchestra. One thing we noticed, as aforementioned, was that Yuen seemed to be overcome by a serious case of the “cutes”, as she tended to project this forlorn, look and squinting up her already small eyes, she pursed her lips and attempted the “Tweety Bird”… Koh Chieng Mun once again came to mind and any moment then, I expected her to say a la Dolly “So exciting!”…
During the interval, we went out to the foyer and I told ryanfoster since they were selling her CD outside for only $22, I might consider buying it IF the Four Last Songs were recorded in the correct order. We went out, I picked up a copy off the counter, turned it over, gave it a glance and disgustedly threw it back. Strange, she even recorded the songs in “her” order. We were nonplussed and wanted to get to the root of the problem, but who could we ask? There was this representative who looked like he would at least give us an intelligent response but then again, perhaps not. ryanfoster then suggested perhaps I should buy the CD and ask her personally when I got her to autograph it. I think not, my finances could be better expended…
After the interval, it was a less captivating programme, opening with excerpts from the conductor’s own opera, Mae Naak. It was supposedly a coloratura role written with Yuen in mind, who gave the premiere performance, so ryanfoster was quite excited at the prospect and potential. However, it was not the tightrope and fireworks that gets him hot under the collar, but just some languid thing with Yuen wailing along like a banshee at certain points. And strangely, despite it being a Thai opera, it was in English. We read the synopsis of the opera and turned to each other and simultaneously declared “Isn’t it Nang Nak?” Yuen had changed into a pink gown this time, and it didn’t flatter her figure and complexion and ryanfoster couldn’t help but note that she didn’t have the bosom to carry it off.
The nightmare of the evening then commenced. It was a medley of traditional Chinese songs and it was here that her chest voice became very apparent, annoying and quite frankly, quite frightening. In the first song, “Yi4 Bei1 Mei3 Jiu3” , from crystal clear warbles and soaring lyric passages, she would descend to the depths and rumble and growl a few lines in this gruff voice and tone. It might work in German but definitely not in Mandarin. The second “Yue4 Guang1 Guang1” was in Cantonese and we quite took to it. My reasoning to ryanfoster was that I liked it better as I didn’t understand it. The trio ended with “Wo 3 Zhu4 Chang2 Jiang1 Tou2” and ryanfoster said he had heard it before and it wasn’t bad. What he left out was that it wasn’t good too… Well, to me, anyway… And you know what the sad thing is? This part of the concert, which we so blatantly abhor, was probably the highlight of the evening for the rest of the audience members. We couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the evening’s attendees would have been more comfortable at Fong Fei Fei or Jenny Tseng concert than at the symphony. Need it be said that the lingua franca of the evening was Mandarin?
The evening closed with the Overture from Aida and then the Act 1 highlight from La Traviata. I must say Yuen despatched Violetta remarkably well and even hit the high note at the end, which ryanfoster then said he would clap for anyone who manages it. Dare I say it, but I think I enjoyed Yuen’s reading more than Sumi Jo’s last month…
The encores for the evening were “pre-planned”, as even before the applause died down, and without exiting the stage, the conductor rummaged in the shelf under his stand for the sheet music of the first encore. Before that, we were discussing what might the encores be and ryanfoster said since she’s performing a season of Liu, we might get “Signore ascolta”, but I said since “Madama Butterfly” was her calling card, we would definitely get “Un bel di”. As it was, I saw “Puccini” in big bold letters and roughly made out three short words in the title sheet, and whispered to ryanfoster that it was Butterfly. Her calling card it may be, and her calling card it deservingly is. In that instant, she managed to convey longing, passion, pain, hurt and love all at once. Was it just me, or did she even manage to inject a palpable tear and weariness in her voice as though reliving Cio Cio San herself? The next encore was a revisitation of the nightmare when the orchestra played the introduction to “Feng4 Yang2 Hua1 Gu3”. It sounded familiar but I couldn’t be sure until Yuen burst into song and I instinctively cringed. It didn’t help that she withdrew into her chest voice once again and effectively smudged the “trrrr piao trrrr piao” runs. The last encore was “introduced” by the conductor when he once again ransacked his shelf and briefly flashed the score of “Tosca” at the audience. ryanfoster (vanity is thy name, the drawbacks of wearing contact lenses without astigmatism correction) missed that and I cued him in. Immediately after ”Vissi d’arte”, the soprano and the conductor made their exit and the lights came on, our cue to take our leave. An entertaining evening none the less… And as I write this, I still can’t get the melody of “Feng4 Yang2 Hua1 Gu3” out of my mind, humming it to myself over and over again…
When we got to the VCH, the place was sparsely populated as we were there a tad early. We wandered around for a bit and joined the sprinkling of people watching a performance of the SSO on a Philips Plasma screen TV. Later, we went up to the second floor and received our copies of the evening’s programme which we duly idly flipped through. The programme was rather amateurishly done up, not unlike the annual books churned out by school editorial boards. Why, there were even those “With compliments” pages from sponsors et al, with the requisite curvy wavy borders and flowing italic script et al. It even smelled the same! We perused the biography write-ups and were suitably impressed that the conductor for the evening, Samtow Sucharitkul was “educated at Eton and Cambridge”. However, when he made his appearance, it was sort of a letdown considering he looked like a crossbreed between a beaver and a hedgehog, and made me think “I am a little teapot, short and stout” to myself. He was also in need of help from the Fashion Police with his metallic blue satin waistcoat… I guess they were correct when saying never to judge a book by its cover.
Nancy Yuen came on stage in a strapless dull olive-greenish-gold gown with a crinkled bodice. The moment she came on, one name immediately came to mind - Koh Chieng Mun - which I deigned to share with ryanfoster, which effectively sent him into spasms trying to reign in his giggles and abstain from snorting. Well, excuse me, but she DID look like KCM, complete with a serious case of the “cutes” from time to time. They opened with the Countess’ two arias from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and I must say I was impressed by the Siam Philharmonic Orchestra as they managed to pull off a rather convincing Mozart sound especially the strings. Yuen managed to deliver the goods, having the requisite “tone” for the Countess, though she seemed to be “creating” the sound by deliberately shaping and “rounding” her articulation. Then again, she has to work hard in an effort to live up to the likes of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Kiri Te Kanawa...
The orchestra then went it alone with Barber’s Adagio for Strings which wasn’t particularly captivating and had the both of us in a stupor waiting for the Four Last Songs up next. We had noticed earlier that in the programme, the song order seemed to be in disarray, and wondered if it was a deliberate decision (and if so, why?) or a misprint. As it turned out, she did indeed sing the work in the “wrong” order printed in the programme. Her German diction was convincing and again she delivered the goods. She sparkled in florid passages and high notes, but her chest voice was a little suspect. ryanfoster was in knots the whole evening, disturbed by her use of chest voice. She didn’t have the necessary support to project her chest voice and when she ventured into that territory, he wondered how the audience at the back of the hall could hear her. As it were, we had seats in the third row and she was already being drowned out by the orchestra. One thing we noticed, as aforementioned, was that Yuen seemed to be overcome by a serious case of the “cutes”, as she tended to project this forlorn, look and squinting up her already small eyes, she pursed her lips and attempted the “Tweety Bird”… Koh Chieng Mun once again came to mind and any moment then, I expected her to say a la Dolly “So exciting!”…
During the interval, we went out to the foyer and I told ryanfoster since they were selling her CD outside for only $22, I might consider buying it IF the Four Last Songs were recorded in the correct order. We went out, I picked up a copy off the counter, turned it over, gave it a glance and disgustedly threw it back. Strange, she even recorded the songs in “her” order. We were nonplussed and wanted to get to the root of the problem, but who could we ask? There was this representative who looked like he would at least give us an intelligent response but then again, perhaps not. ryanfoster then suggested perhaps I should buy the CD and ask her personally when I got her to autograph it. I think not, my finances could be better expended…
After the interval, it was a less captivating programme, opening with excerpts from the conductor’s own opera, Mae Naak. It was supposedly a coloratura role written with Yuen in mind, who gave the premiere performance, so ryanfoster was quite excited at the prospect and potential. However, it was not the tightrope and fireworks that gets him hot under the collar, but just some languid thing with Yuen wailing along like a banshee at certain points. And strangely, despite it being a Thai opera, it was in English. We read the synopsis of the opera and turned to each other and simultaneously declared “Isn’t it Nang Nak?” Yuen had changed into a pink gown this time, and it didn’t flatter her figure and complexion and ryanfoster couldn’t help but note that she didn’t have the bosom to carry it off.
The nightmare of the evening then commenced. It was a medley of traditional Chinese songs and it was here that her chest voice became very apparent, annoying and quite frankly, quite frightening. In the first song, “Yi4 Bei1 Mei3 Jiu3” , from crystal clear warbles and soaring lyric passages, she would descend to the depths and rumble and growl a few lines in this gruff voice and tone. It might work in German but definitely not in Mandarin. The second “Yue4 Guang1 Guang1” was in Cantonese and we quite took to it. My reasoning to ryanfoster was that I liked it better as I didn’t understand it. The trio ended with “Wo 3 Zhu4 Chang2 Jiang1 Tou2” and ryanfoster said he had heard it before and it wasn’t bad. What he left out was that it wasn’t good too… Well, to me, anyway… And you know what the sad thing is? This part of the concert, which we so blatantly abhor, was probably the highlight of the evening for the rest of the audience members. We couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the evening’s attendees would have been more comfortable at Fong Fei Fei or Jenny Tseng concert than at the symphony. Need it be said that the lingua franca of the evening was Mandarin?
The evening closed with the Overture from Aida and then the Act 1 highlight from La Traviata. I must say Yuen despatched Violetta remarkably well and even hit the high note at the end, which ryanfoster then said he would clap for anyone who manages it. Dare I say it, but I think I enjoyed Yuen’s reading more than Sumi Jo’s last month…
The encores for the evening were “pre-planned”, as even before the applause died down, and without exiting the stage, the conductor rummaged in the shelf under his stand for the sheet music of the first encore. Before that, we were discussing what might the encores be and ryanfoster said since she’s performing a season of Liu, we might get “Signore ascolta”, but I said since “Madama Butterfly” was her calling card, we would definitely get “Un bel di”. As it was, I saw “Puccini” in big bold letters and roughly made out three short words in the title sheet, and whispered to ryanfoster that it was Butterfly. Her calling card it may be, and her calling card it deservingly is. In that instant, she managed to convey longing, passion, pain, hurt and love all at once. Was it just me, or did she even manage to inject a palpable tear and weariness in her voice as though reliving Cio Cio San herself? The next encore was a revisitation of the nightmare when the orchestra played the introduction to “Feng4 Yang2 Hua1 Gu3”. It sounded familiar but I couldn’t be sure until Yuen burst into song and I instinctively cringed. It didn’t help that she withdrew into her chest voice once again and effectively smudged the “trrrr piao trrrr piao” runs. The last encore was “introduced” by the conductor when he once again ransacked his shelf and briefly flashed the score of “Tosca” at the audience. ryanfoster (vanity is thy name, the drawbacks of wearing contact lenses without astigmatism correction) missed that and I cued him in. Immediately after ”Vissi d’arte”, the soprano and the conductor made their exit and the lights came on, our cue to take our leave. An entertaining evening none the less… And as I write this, I still can’t get the melody of “Feng4 Yang2 Hua1 Gu3” out of my mind, humming it to myself over and over again…