No less than twelve prizes were ready for some sixty singing talents who started the International Vocal Competition (IVC) in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. This year it was about opera and oratorio. The Russian tenor Andrei Danilov (1988) won two of the three main prizes: the overall Grand Prix and the Opera Prize. Third for best oratorio singer went to Czech mezzo Bella Adamova (1992). The audience, on the other hand, crowned the expressive Portuguese soprano Sílvia Sequiera (1992) their favorite.
Ten promises presented themselves on Saturday in the final (in Eindhoven due to the new construction of the Theater aan de Parade in Den Bosch): eight finalists and two singers who did not make it to the final battle but already won a prize after the semi-finals; the 20-year-old Ukrainian Yurii Strakhov – whose baritone already has an autumnal maturity – was proclaimed Young Talent and at the other end of the voice spectrum, the Chinese soprano Xueli Zhou, who is almost ten years older, could call herself the best coloratura soprano with her acrobatics in height .
Experience
Mozart, Puccini and Richard Strauss were the composers on the program several times: transparency versus dramatic densification. Singing is an experiential profession, so it was not surprising that the oldest finalist Danilov took home the big prizes. The tenor impressed in particular as the begging lover Roberto, whose conscience the death of his abandoned lover expresses in the aria, ‘Torna ai felici’ from Puccini’s first opera. Le Villi† His voice flowed like oil, shimmering darkly, and with dramatic depth. Finally, Danilov also served that signature Puccini slot gasp.
He was the only one among the three male finalists to reach the acting standard. Both Poles, the baritone Szymon Raczkowski and the tenor Stanislaw Napierala, sang creditably but failed to draw you into the emotions and characters behind their arias. In that respect, the theater animals were among the singers. The Portuguese soprano Sílvia Sequiera, the Belgian and Czech mezzos Linsey Coppens and Jolana Slavikova threw themselves heart and soul into euphoria and sadness. The only Dutch finalist, soprano Tinka Pypker, was a bit too modest in that respect, perhaps partly because of her dress, which was beautiful, but severely limited her freedom of movement, which is a shame when singing a waltz.
Prize song
The prize song ‘Het Goud van Vermeer’ by composer Bart Visman, to a text by baritone Marc Pantus, was striking, in which the latter aptly sketches the emotional world of singers: the doubt, the lying and then suddenly the magic. Linsey Coppens won the prize for the best interpretation with the Dutch original. Jolana Slavikova sang the English version, which you could easily include in the American Songbook.
‘Vermeer’s Gold’ sung at the IVC in 2021.