Auckland Philharmonia at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

Judging by the many empty seats for the first concert of the Auckland Philharmonia's Minter Ellison Rudd Watts Spring Season, an evening of Italian "Jealousy and Rage" was not the crowd-puller hoped for.

Setting off with a clutch of overtures and such, the orchestra was in good form, from the sturdy brass quartet which opened Nabucco to some sweetly harmonising violins in the Traviata Prelude. However, a dramatic account of La Forza del Destino aside, was conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya really offering us the cream of the Italian overture repertoire?

Rather than hear Verdi inflict a Rossini crescendo on his hapless Israelites in the patchy Nabucco overture, couldn't we have had something from the pen of Monsieur Crescendo himself?

After interval came Pagliacci, that ultimo verismo of operas. Leoncavallo's tale of a cuckold's bloody revenge - think The Blue Angel operatic style - demands a full theatrical presentation. You need the smell of the greasepaint and the gasp of the crowd to feel Canio's humiliation. With Pagliacci's play within a play structure, you want to see the characters transformed into their alter egos; Canio into pathetic clown, Nedda into coquettish Colombina.

In concert, despite Simon Prast's smooth MC, too much was asked of our imagination when the principals, already locked behind music stands, were also obscured, for many, by the conductor.

The singing did not disappoint, when one reconciled oneself to listening rather than watching. Simon O'Neill brought his customary intensity to Canio with a "Vesti la giubba" that wrenched heartstrings, and Deborah Wai Kapohe was a poised Nedda, delivering some sharper playing opposite James Meng's Arlecchino towards the end.

The two Americans impressed: Brian Mulligan as Silvio with his effortless lyricism, Blake Davidson, as Tonio, putting the Prologue across with the same pizzazz that one might expect from a baritone who has Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Soliloquy" under his belt.

While it was good to see the 100-plus enthusiastic singers of the Pagliacci chorus, the visual effect was more choral than operatic.

At any moment, I feared, we might be in for a Hallelujah Chorus. What a shame the women couldn't have been brought back next week to reinstate Neptune into Holst's musical solar system ...