Search - Tommi Hakala, Giuseppe Verdi, Richard [Classical] Wagner :: Great Baritone Arias

A charismatic, assured Finnish singer who surprises in Verdi

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 10/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Finnish record companies are invariably generous about showcasing rising musical talent, in this case handsome baritone Tommi Hakala, who was the BBC Singer of the World in 2003. He's unknown to me, but the first item on this orechestral recital, Ford's angry aria from Falstaff, is sung with rock-steady tone, intensity, and power. The voice is a dark-hued baritone rather than the more popular flavor that extends upward into the lower tenor range.



Verdi wrote for this kind of voice, however, and despite fairly basic Italian, Hakala has the right Verdian timbre. 'Di Provenza, il mar' is porbably the hardest baritone aria in the canon, and even if Hakala doesn't spin out an unbroken ribbon of velvet sound as Sherrill Milnes and Renato Bruson do, he's more dramatically involved. The only dud here is Valentin's aria from Gounod's Faust, which Hakala shouts in execreble if passionate French.



Two arias for Wolfram from Tannhauser, including the famous Ode to the Evening Star, find the singer more linguistically at home, but I guess he doesn't think so, because everything else is in Italian, from Nozze di Figaro to Pagliacci and Andrea Chenier. In every number Hakala is quite winning -- I wonder if he'll be noticed in La Boheme at the Met this season?



Here's the complete program --

Falstaff : E sogno o realta? (Verdi). Don Carlo : Son io mio Carlo... Io morro (Verdi). Traviata : Di provenza il mar (Verdi). Tannhauser : Blick ich umher Wie Todesahnung... O Du mein holder Abenstern (Wagner). I Pagliacci : E fra quest'ansie... E allor perche (Leoncavallo). Edgar : Questo amor (Puccini). Andrea Chenier : Nemico della patria (Giordano). Faust : O sainte medaille... Avant de quitter (Gounod). Figaro : Hai gia vinta la causa! (Mozart). Cosi fan tutte : Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo (Mozart).

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