Triumph at the Lyric

Yesterday I drove all the way down to Chicago to see Dmitri Hvorostovsky in recital at the Lyric Opera.  He just about never comes to the Midwest, let alone the Great Lakes region; so when I read that he was doing a recital in Chicago, I got the tickets.  There were a lot of Russians in the audience; two were right behind me. 

The lineup was a series of romances by Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, and Strauss.  A romance in this case is a short song, typically the sort of piece one would sing in the parlor or drawing room.  I recognized one piece on the list, and that was Tchaikovsky's "I bless you, forests".  

At first it seemed to take Dima a while to get his energy going, but once he got moving he was unstoppable.  Hearing him live was a different experience from hearing him Live in HD or over the radio.  His voice is very rich and seductive, and he showed it at full force last night.  One piece that absolutely stood out to me was Rimsky-Korsakov's "The lark sings louder", which sounded for all the world like a secular version of the hymn "Wonderful Grace of Jesus".  He received such an ovation at the end that he did three encores.  One of them was the classic Neapolitan song "Core N'grato" (this was the first time I heard it sung by a baritone).  I cannot place what the second encore was, but the third one was the famous Russian folk song "Farewell my joy", traditionally sung acapella. 

This was a major undertaking for Dima given that his health has not been all that great (see my review of Il Trovatore for more information).  So for him to pull off a long recital at this stage of the game is quite an accomplishment.  Now the question is when is he going to perform for Madison or Milwaukee.