As soon as American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato walked on stage you could see she is not your usual diva: she was barefoot beneath her glamorous evening gown, and she had a pink streak in her blonde hair.
One of today’s most celebrated singers, DiDonato is known for transcending boundaries. She has focused largely on early music but also performs modern music. She sings in operas as well as giving jazz recitals.
With Il Pomo d’Oro, an ensemble specialised in historically informed performances of music from the Baroque and Classical periods, she brought her conceptual show Eden to Hong Kong for a sold-out one night appearance.
The show’s selection of songs, while eclectic musically (with composers ranging from the 17th to the 21st centuries), is supposed to share a common theme – the beauty of nature and its importance for the well-being of the human soul.
This is most explicit in Gene Scheer’s thoughtful lyric to DiDonato’s opening song, contemporary British composer Rachel Portman’s In the morning of the world, although elsewhere the connection seems more tenuous.
Two arias stood out for addressing not only the destruction of nature but the ravages of war. In Josef Mysliveček’s fiery Toglierò le sponde al Mare (I shall tear the sea from its shores) a vengeful Angel of Justice prepares to wreak havoc on the world, while Francesco Cavalli’s poignant Piante ombrose (Shady woodlands) is a lament for the devastation wrought by war and a plea for wars to end.
The first dates from 1771, the second from 1651, yet both are all too relevant today.
DiDonato’s deeply felt Piante ombrose was a high point of the performance, as was her exquisite interpretation of Mahler’s delicate Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft (I breathed a gentle fragrance).
Her singing is distinguished by gorgeously rich, full tone, effortless technique and impeccable clarity of diction whether in English, German or Italian. Above all, what makes her exceptional is her expressiveness – of voice, face and body – and how natural she makes classical singing seem, a rare feat.
Led by violinist Zefira Valova, Il Pomo d’Oro played superbly, both in accompanying DiDonato and in the instrumental pieces with which the songs were interspersed, giving a consummate demonstration of how music more than three hundred years old can still delight and stir the listener today.
The staging was minimalist, employing simple lighting effects and grouping the musicians on the left and right of the stage. In the middle was a shallow circular pit framed with curved sections of metal, out of which DiDonato (with some help from the stage crew) eventually created an upright double circle which served as centrepiece.
She herself alternated between sitting on the floor and moving between the pit and the front of the stage. Surtitles in English and Chinese made it easy to follow the songs and get the most out of them.
The performance seemed to have been shortened slightly, with a couple of songs being dropped, and it ended with DiDonato talking about the importance of nature and telling the audience they would find some seeds in their programmes which she hoped they would plant.
She then introduced the Good Hope School Choir, who sang two songs about planting seeds of love and hope – collaboration with young local choirs has been part of the Eden project worldwide, as has distributing seeds to audiences – before the show ended with DiDonato singing Handel’s serenely beautiful Ombra mai fu (Never was a shade).
The girls from Good Hope School certainly sang well, and DiDonato’s heart is clearly in the right place, but their contribution felt out of place after such a sophisticated programme of music (I could not help thinking of the 1970s feel-good anthem I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony).
Nonetheless, DiDonato was not wrong in saying that we focus too much on what is negative and forget how much can be achieved by being positive. The seeds given out in Hong Kong are lavender, a plant that does not usually do well here as the climate is too humid.
Still, I will plant mine and see if they will grow.
“Eden”, Joyce DiDonato and il Pomo d’Oro, Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. Reviewed: June 3