photo by Douglas Merriam
Eglise Gutiérrez
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Soprano Eglise Gutiérrez, assisted by pianist Danielle Orlando, gave a recital on March 10, at Merkin Concert Hall, under the auspices of the Opera Orchestra of New York (OONY) and the Vidda Foundation, and the event felt like throwback to an era when divas ruled the world and bel canto reigned supreme, an almost illicit indulgence in these days of the restrictive Riccardo Muti 'come scritto' (as written) "Attila" performances.

During the first half of the evening, Gutiérrez alternated coloratura showpieces and essentially lyrical selections. She grabbed the audience's attention immediately, with Alexander Alexandrovich Alyab'yev's "Salaviei" (the nightingale), with very flashy florid variations, some pianissimo, many stratospheric, sung in chiaroscuro tone, her dark vocal core capped with a bright high range. A more subdued song about a nightingale followed, Enrique Granados "La maja y el ruiseñor," from the opera "Goyescas," in which the virtuoso part was entrusted to pianist Orlando, while Gutiérrez gave an impassioned account of the late-Romantic vocal line.

In Giovanni Paisiello's "Nel cor più non mi sento," from the opera "L'amor contrastato" (Love Hard Won), Gutiérrez followed a rightly unadorned statement of the melody with a repetition rich in bravura embellishments. Then came her "Amarilli, mia bella," Giulio Caccini's madrigal, ornamented with relative restraint. Assisted by flutist Edward Schultz, Gutiérrez ended this part of the evening by pulling out all the stops in Heinrich Proch's air "Deh, torna, mio bene!" with more and more outrageously ornamented variations, all executed with authority, sometimes dueting (dueling?) with the flute.

The announced program for the second half of the recital, made up of Spanish and Cuban songs, looked fairly reserved on paper, perhaps, one reasoned, in preparation for a spate of encores filled with fioritura. Gutiérrez must have felt it sounded too low-key, too, because she began instead with a mid-program encore, the finale of Vincenzo Bellini's "La Sonnambula," an opera she sang with OONY, under Eve Queler's baton, and after her moving legato "Ah! non credea mirarti," came her "Ah! non giunge" with dazzling pyrotechnics in its repeat.

In a quartet of classic "madrigales amatorios" (madrigals of love), in versions by Joaquín Rodrigo, Gutiérrez approached the first two, "¿Con que la lavare" and "Vos me matásteis," with classical simplicity, while taking advantage of the opportunity for coloratura display afforded by the last two, "¿De dónde venís, amore?" and "De los álamos vengo, madre," which are sometimes heard out of context.
Gutiérrez's offerings drawing on her Cuban heritage were Jorge Anckermann's "Flor de Yumuri," a tuneful love song, to a Latin dance rhythm; Emilio Grenet's "Quirino con su tres," a bouncy Creole-style number, to which the singer could not resist dancing; and Ernesto Lecuona's "Canción del amor triste," lilting despite its nominally melancholy subject, and "El Faisán," a romantic ballad with a buoyant refrain, given a grandly expansive performance.

Gutiérrez's encores were the finale of Act One of Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata"-a heartfelt "È strano ... Ah, fors'è lui" and a "Sempre libera" of fittingly feverish brilliance, with Alfredo's responses provided by an unidentified tenor in the audience-and a love duet, which I would venture to say was María Grever's "Te Quiero, Dijiste," with baritone Luis Ledesma.