Before my experience of hearing Ewa Podleś perform with the Toronto Symphony completely recedes into unreliable memory, here are some observations.
Her tone was really veiled. The sound lacked point in all parts of her range, and it failed to carry. The voice seemed to be functioning well and I got the feeling she didn’t lack resonance, but the sound just did not travel. Why? I’m not sure.
Were the acoustics of Roy Thomson Hall to blame? The hall underwent a multi-million-dollar renovation a few years ago. It looks like the Carousel in "Logan's Run." The improved acoustics seem serviceable, though quite engineered-sounding. The echo time was just so, the overtones were just so, etc. The Thomson Hall sound seems to demand monumentality of expression from the stage, otherwise music sounds tiny, under-pronounced, frozen. It could be that the hall is just not flattering to the voice. Or maybe my seat to the side, two levels overhead was beyond the sonic reach of a crafted performance.
Were there range issues in Podleś’s voice? “Giovanna d’Arco” is real contralto territory, quite low-lying most of the time. The “Maid of Orleans” aria lay higher, and Podleś’s sound was stronger there, though not a lot louder. The Tchaikovsky aria was musically more successful than the Rossini, too. The intense, brooding affect of Tchaikovsky fit Podleś’s temperament better than the fresh, vivacious sparkle of Rossini. The composers were talking about the same Joan of Arc, but wrote two different psychodramas. I liked the orchestral arrangement of the Rossini by contemporary composer, Salvatore Sciarrino. It sounded like typical Rossini operatic writing.
I should add that the Tchaikovsky Symphony at the end was by and large disappointing. The gestures and the phrasing were so heavily smoothed out that the musicians could have been playing Schubert. Not much of an attempt was made to communicate a story behind this rampaging, mood-swingy music, which cries out for emotional engagement. All I heard was background music for a TV commercial. I don’t know whether to blame the players or Richard Bradshaw, the conductor. They all seemed to know what they were doing, with no regrets about how incredibly bland their work was.
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