by Pattaya Mail’s renowned critic, Jay Patterson
‘A Night on Broadway’, which was sponsored by the Rotary Club of
Jomtien-Pattaya, was a smashing success in garnering funds for the benevolent
club’s various charity projects. The Grand Ballroom of the Royal Cliff Hotel was
full and this showed that there are many in Pattaya who are interested in
hearing good music by international-standard musicians.
Mario
Bertolino, Bass Baritone, sings “If I were a rich man” from “Fiddler on the
Roof”
This critic appreciates the generosity of the Royal Cliff in offering their
ballroom for the concert. It is a beautiful ballroom and probably one of the
only available venues for the concert, due to the benevolence of Mr. Alois X.
Fassbind.
The problem was that it is not a concert hall. In this type of performance
acoustics are all important. The ballroom was not designed for this.
Classical singers do not use microphones and rely on vocal resonance which makes
air vibrate and carries the voice to all parts of the hall. The ideal hall must
have a carefully designed shape and many hard surfaces to optimise the resonance
of voices and instruments. This was the main disappointment of the evening. The
ballroom is beautiful, but thickly carpeted with many hanging draperies and
padded walls. These all deaden resonance and are a singer’s nightmare. If a
singer must perform in such a hall, this leads to worries that the voice won’t
be heard and a subconscious ‘pushing’ on the voice occurs and makes the sound
lose higher acoustic partials and results in a rather hard vocal quality.
The Grand Finalé of A Night on Broadway.
This critic sympathised totally with the singers and pianist.
The only time that the group seemed really comfortable was in the ensembles as
the numbers of voices made up for the acoustical shortcomings of the hall.
Lyric-coloratura Victoria Atwater’s voice is very clear and highly placed. I
would like to hear her sing more serious music, though, as she doesn’t seem
comfortable with the Broadway idiom. It would have been wonderful if there could
have been a bit of a ‘crossover’ into operetta. If she had sung Mabel’s ‘Poor
Wandering One’ from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance or the Vilja Lied
from Lehar’s Merry Widow, it would have shown off her voice and vocal technique.
One of my favourite songs, Can’t help Lovin’ that Man of Mine from Show Boat,
was a disappointment, as it was sung by three characters and the lyrics were
pasted and patched together. Ms. Atwater did not seem to catch the romantic
‘bluesy’ feel of the song.
A house full of Pattaya music lovers.
‘I feel Pretty’ from West Side Story was finely sung and the duet Make Believe
from Show Boat was pretty. I sympathised with Ms. Atwater when she sang I’m in
Love with a Wonderful Guy from South Pacific. Written in a low Mezzo-Soprano
range it lay at the bottom of her voice. It would have been much more enjoyable
if a microphone had been used
Elena Heimur has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve heard recently. It has a
luscious, rich, dark tone. Although she bills herself as a soprano, she sounds
much more like a mezzo-soprano. The tessitura of all the songs seemed quite high
for her voice. The high notes were well produced, but I wish she would have sung
some of the beautiful Broadway songs written for Mezzo-soprano or Contralto. She
would have done You’ll Never Walk Alone from Carousel or Happy Talk from South
Pacific beautifully. For some reason she transposed Bali Hai from South Pacific
,which is a deep contralto solo, into a much higher key. This took the mystery
and romance out of the song. I would enjoy hearing Ms. Heimer sing a Rossini
role such as Cenerentola or Rosina. Her sexy voice would also be perfectly
suited to the role of Delilah in Saint-Saens Samson et Dalilah. Voices with such
an alluring quality are very rare.
Members of the Rotary Club Jomtien-Pattaya with the
Broadway artists at the Thank you party held at Bruno’s Restaurant, the night
after the concert.
Raymond Dobrovolsky’s tenor is a voice that we should be hearing much more of in
the future. Totally secure, with endless high notes, it was the least affected
by the poor acoustics.
Donald Boos, who bills himself as a music comedian, is a bit too modest. He has
a beautiful high baritone voice and is a wonderful actor. Emotion radiated from
his eyes in every solo and he was the only singer to actually sing to his
partner in the duets. Bravo!
Mario Bertolino was the ‘Godfather’ of the evening. He wisely chose songs that
suited his voice and was always in character. A consummate entertainer, he came
into the audience and gave everyone a wonderful medley of Italian standards in
his beautifully rich Bass-Baritone voice. He did this with a microphone and the
effect was perfect. With the hall’s poor acoustics, he did not have to push his
voice, and could colour his tone and give the songs just the right flavour.
This critic tried the piano after the concert. Eric Rosser, an excellent
pianist, seemed to be beating the piano into submission throughout the concert.
The piano was out of tune and the tone was clanky. This gave him little chance
to play with dynamics and tone colour as the instrument was so unresponsive.
This critics hopes that these artists will return and do a night of opera, which
would really show off their talents.
Despite these small problems, this was a totally enjoyable and productive
evening. Music lovers were satisfied and the Rotary Club of Jomtien-Pattaya once
again scored a coup in helping people in need.
From the number of people who attended, this critic thinks more musical evenings
like this would be welcomed by the citizens of Pattaya.
