Search - Gaetano Donizetti, Pietro Mascagni, Jules Massenet :: Yu Qiang Dai: Opera Arias

People, you must hear this tenor!!!

V. Chau | San Diego, CA | 01/21/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This review will be biased since I am Chinese and the tenor is Chinese. However, I have tried to be as objective as possible.



It's very rare that I get caught up in praising the excellence of tenors. However, listening to this recital has compelled me to write a glowing review of Yu Qiang Dai's work.



Yu Qiang Dai is an exciting new discovery! He has a beautiful voice (one of the most pleasing tenor voices I have ever heard), with a very Italianate timbre that reminds me of Mario del Monaco. His voice is not distinctive, but that is only because he sounds so often like other famous tenors! His tenor is full blooded, warm, and burnished. In "Che gelida manina", he sounds surprisingly like Giacomo Aragall. In fact, I would best describe his voice as sounding like a smaller scale del Monaco with hints of Aragall thrown in. Only sometimes does his individual voice emerge. To my ears, he is definitely a Puccini and verismo tenor. He sounds glorious in the Puccini, Mascagni, and Ponchielli arias.



When I heard the first aria on the recital, "Donna non vidi mai", I immediately knew that this was a special voice. Based on his renditions of Mario Cavaradossi's two arias, he would make a splendid Cavaradossi in the theater. "Recondita armonia" is beautifully sung. His "Non piangere, Liù" is quite good. He definitely has a feeling for Calàf's wonderful music. "Nessun dorma" goes well, the high B starts out good, but ends with strain. His charming, if not truly idiomatic, account of "La donna è mobile" is delightful to hear. He muscles the cadenza, but the following high B is thrilling to hear. I suspect this note might have been spliced in, but am not sure. In "Una furtiva lagrima", he is clearly out of his Fach. Nemorino he is not. That said, he does sing some wonderful phrases in the aria, yet he sings others quite badly. I don't like his near crooning of some phrases. He gives a gorgeous account of "Cielo e mar". This is one of the best renditions I have heard of Enzo's aria. The high notes are splendid and he sounds truly enchanted with his surroundings (this is Venice at nighttime, of course!). In the "Luisa Miller" aria, he sounds truly involved and sings wonderfully as well. His rendition of Rodolfo's aria from "La Bohème" is deeply felt and sung really well. The climatic high C is spectacular. In "Mamma, quel vino è generoso", he sings passionately without overemoting. The final "Addio!" is a thrilling end to this recital.



I admire his total sincerity throughout the recital. He sounds very natural and comfortable singing Western opera. His singing is full of thrilling Italian passion. His is the kind of tenorial vocalism that would bring down the house in any theater. He clearly loves singing this music. Who wouldn't? This is the gorgeous music of Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, and Ponchielli after all.



Dai's phrasing is already quite accomplished. All that he needs to do is to phrase consistently well. In some arias (especially the Puccini ones), he lets his phrasing go slack on certain phrases. His Italian diction is clear, though there are minor flaws to be ironed out (his singing of the words "le diverse bellezze insiem" in "Recondita armonia" is a bit careful; those "s" sounds are hard for a Mandarin speaker to enunciate). There are minor pitch problems, but these do not detract significantly from his singing. The orchestra plays beautifully and conductor José Antonio Molina offers sympathetic support.



The sound, for the most part, is very good. However, EMI's engineers have felt it necessary to add reverb to Dai's voice. Because of this, the listener cannot really tell how big his voice really is. This is unfortunate. I really wish that recording engineers would record operatic voices naturally, without any electronic "enhancement". I sincerely hope that this disc is not one of EMI's recording tricks like their first Alagna CDs.



If Yu Qiang Dai sounds live like he does on this recital, then he will be one of the true greats of opera.



Hearing him makes me want to be a tenor!

"

Fantastic tenor!

Giacomo | 10/16/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It was a big shock to hear Yu Qiang Dai's debut cd. He is, I think, the best lirico-spinto tenor nowadays. He has a lovely voice, which is very well produced. The center is wonderful, the lower notes are good, the high notes are shining and of fantastic quality... the singing through the passage is very well handled. He is an itelligent musical interpreter and singer, with an interesting and appealing line and sense of style. Very good dynamic changes. He offers some of the absolutely best renditions of some arias (nessun dorma and cielo e mar, for example) that I have heard in many years.

He still has to work his Italian (specially the consonants) and his French. But there were great historical tenors with bigger idiomatical problems.

Despite taking spinto repertoire, Yu never pushes, never tries to make the voice sound darker than it is, everything is always under control, and he takes the chance to give very stylish renditions (for example, of una furtiva lagrima), which is strange for tenors who "want to sing spinto".

The tenor is a fantastic discovery, one of the best ones around. Actually, all my criticism goes to EMI and the production of the CD: no choirs, no solists (for example, for the aria of Cavalleria, where the mother should sing her line), and the acoustic "atmosphere" has made some people to doubt if Yu's voice is really as big as it seems (people who saw his Cavaradossi at Covent Garden say that it is very big, actually).

Not a the best production job by the people of EMI, but five stars (ten if possible) for the singer. Simply wonderful."

And what do we have here?

Grady Harp | Los Angeles, CA United States | 09/17/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"EMI continues to grace the market with CDs of young talent, helping to introduce worthy voices at the inception of their careers. Sometimes it works well (Eric Cutler is a fine example of this) and sometimes it raises questions. Yu Qiang Dai has a pleasing enough voice, a tenor with enough heft to make him credible in the verismo arena. But this sampler could easily be placed in the rack under "Opera's Greatest Hits", so ordinary is this selection of arias. They are all potboilers, not that that is a bad thing at all as they are popular because the public loves them. It just seems that with a new voice such as Yu Qiang Dai there should be some attention paid to the lesser known works in the repertoire, works that might just allow us to listen to the voice instead of sighing and keeping time to the aria. Enough about content. As for his form, this tenor has a sameness to his execution of these well-known arias that doesn't hint at the characterization. The voice is nice, even beautiful in places, but there are insecure pitch problems, lack of timbre changes, and in general it sounds like these arias were learned by rote. The miking of the tenor in a different sound place from the orchestra does not allow us to know if he can transcend a pit orchestra in an opera house. In all, this CD introduces a pleasant voice, and only time will tell if there is a fulfillment of promise that is a bit lacking here."