Podles triumphs in Boston debut
Last night the Polish contralto Ewa Podles made her long-overdue Boston debut, and the city's vociferous vocal fans turned out to give her a full diva reception, with bravos, whistles, cheers, and floral deliveries.
Biographical sources report that Podles was born in 1952, which is possible, and she's been singing in this country since a handful of appearances with the Metropolitan Opera in 1984 and a Newport Festival recital at about the same time. Full recognition of her qualities took another dozen years because her voice and her style of singing represent a throwback to an earlier generation.
Although Podles is not a large woman, her voice is a huge, deep, velvety contralto, a timbre rarely heard in our time, but she can also sing well beyond the usual range for such an instrument. Last night she deployed two and a half octaves; she can keep her voice integrated, or split it up to descend into cavernous chest tones. Voices this size are often muscle-bound, but Podles's instrument is amazingly flexible, and she can steer it safely through the most fearsome rapids. She is not a subtle interpreter, but instead is open-hearted, generous, elemental; she gives her all in voice and gesture.
Podles's recorded Rossini recital for Naxos a decade ago, and later discs of Russian songs for Forlane and a collection of Chopin songs with pianist Garrick Ohlsson on Arabesque are first-rate. Last night she didn't consistently sing on that level; one wishes she had been here a while back, and with Ohlsson; last night she wasn't helped much by her diligent but square and unimaginative pianist, Ania Marchwinska.
Her Chopin songs were idiomatic, and her delivery of the Polish texts so communicative that the audience laughed and sighed at all the right places. Rossini's cantata ''Giovanna d'Arco" alternated authoritative recitative and flamboyant coloratura, although her Italian was occluded, and a sustained high note at the end sagged from pitch. She was fervent and opulent in some Rachmaninoff songs, but the final pianissimo of ''In the Silence of the Night" failed to clear up and float free. Her zestful but unvaried assault on most of Brahms's ''Gypsy Songs" was exhausting, so it was a relief to arrive at the one quiet piece in the cycle. The prolonged applause brought two encores, a passionate Tchaikovsky song and a dazzling, amusing, larger-than-life performance of ''Cruda sorte" from Rossini's ''L'Italiana in Algeri" -- you wouldn't want to tangle with this Italian girl any more than you'd want to mess with Mother Nature.
