Plácido Domingo’s big-hearted charity concert was musically and financially brilliant.
What have earthquakes and the world’s most celebrated living tenor got in common? Lots. Spanish-born Plácido Domingo claims, “I was in Mexico City’s worst recorded earthquake in 1985, which caused 3000 deaths, including four of my close family members. The sight of children who had lost their parents motivated me to set up a charity concert for them.”
Fast-forward to Christchurch’s shocker last February, which killed 181. Domingo’s humanitarian response is identical. That was one touchstone of his presence. The other is that Chris Doig secured him as patron of Christchurch’s Southern Opera. Domingo and Doig have been buddies since the 70s when the latter launched his opera career in Vienna.
Domingo gave Doig a cheque for $301,588 raised by a sold-out house of 8000 at three-figure ticket prices, the money to be shared between the quake-wrecked Court Theatre and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra (CSO). “A new Court Theatre can now be up and running by December 10 at Addington,” said its CEO, Philip Aldridge. Also thrilled was CSO chairwoman Therese Arseneau.
A fortuitous quake spin-off has made New Zealand and Japan sister-countries in a programme named A Tale of Two Cities. The CSO has been a guest in Tokyo’s week-long festival (“Outstanding reception, too,” says Arseneau), and will then go north to quake-damaged Sendai.
So, with the CSO abroad and the NZSO unavailable, Doig and NZSO CEO Peter Walls had to think quickly to bring forward the NZSO’s National Youth Orchestra as the next best available.
As for the concert, Domingo, with his Three Tenors background, is an old hand at letting his hair down and bowling the masses in programmes tilted to middlebrows.
It is the other side of this intelligent singer’s ability to handle the heavies perceptively, such as in recent title roles in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal, or Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra title role – when this busy bundle of versatility decides to become a baritone, too.
Although Domingo’s nearly 70, his voice has lost little if any of its burnish. His two zarzuela pieces and the evergreen Granada were served with the dramatic passion of someone half his age. In the flirtatious operetta and Mozart excerpts, his vivid acting made him a natural womaniser. Welsh National Opera’s beautiful young mezzo crossover singer, Katherine Jenkins, was his ideal partner for those.
She shared the vocal items and numerous encores on an equal footing in a long programme that finished at 10.50pm. Especially rapturous was her low contralto register. Her stately Saint-Saëns Delilah aria flowed out with the richness of thick cream as one of the evening’s great performances. I admired the two singers’ refusal to patronise the lighter stuff by treating them as mere throwaways. Their shared pianissimos nurtured Bernstein’s Tonight with breathtaking intimacy.
If Domingo was genuinely bowled by the National Youth Orchestra players, aged from 13 to in their 20s, the youngsters were equally awestruck to be accompanying the iconic Domingo and Jenkins: “Your parents have paid for music lessons. Now you have been able to choose the most beautiful profession of all,” said Domingo. Under US conductor Eugene Kohn, Peter Walls (three items) and Domingo (one item), their deeply involved and idiomatic playing far exceeded my expectations.
The entire production by young Kiwi Craig Donell was stunning. It had more standing ovations per hour than anything I’ve seen here.
“No one has worked harder for the arts than Chris Doig,” claimed Donell. True. For the well-connected Doig this charity presentation was his baby – his virtual legacy to Christchurch’s future. All the more pity he couldn’t have been on stage to take a bow among the evening’s other heroes.
To the night’s other hero: Señor Domingo, muchísimas gracias por todo lo que nos dio. Siempre lo vamos a recordar.
PLÁCIDO DOMINGO, CBS Canterbury Arena, Christchurch, October 6.