★★★★★ Piotr Beczała is one of today’s great opera stars. He has been a regular in the main lyrical theaters in the world for a few decades, he had never sung at the Colón. As has happened with many great international classical music artists, the Buenos Aires debut of this fabulous Polish tenor took place at the hands of the Mozarteum Argentino, an institution that opened a very special season with this recital, in which it celebrates its 70th anniversary ( see box).
Undoubtedly, all the expectations that Beczała may have aroused among the public that attended were far exceeded. He is a dazzling artist: a singer with a sumptuous and warm voice, refined phrasing, expressive capacity, with an amazing technical mastery, which allows him to approach a varied repertoire with naturalness, elegance and enormous dedication.
The program he chose for his debut at the Colón was a reflection of the breadth of that repertoire, since it included both arias and chamber songs in various languages. The first part was dominated by Italian, with arias from Verdi operas in which Beczała displayed the beauty of her voice, even throughout its length, with a central zone of attractive dark color and powerful treble. In the songs of Leoncavallo and Tosti, the tenor and the great pianist Camillo Radicke created an intimate and subtle atmosphere. And at the end of the first part, Beczała could be seen wonderfully singing in his own language a scene from the opera “The Haunted Mansion”, by the Polish composer Stanisław Moniuszko.
The second part of the recital began with songs by Stefano Donaudy and Sergei Rachmaninov, performed with incomparable mastery. The final segment of the program was dedicated to arias by Tchaikovsky, Gounod and Puccini, in which the tenor admirably captured a wide range of emotions, between melancholy, illusion, infatuation and despair of each character.
The cheers that greeted Beczała and Radicke had several rewards. The artists returned again and again to the stage and gave away six pieces outside the program, including opera and operetta arias and songs. A monumental closing for a concert that will remain in the memory, among the most glorious nights in the recent history of the Colón.
