Opera Australia’s appearances in Melbourne have an almost wistful quality these days, given the present closure of the State Theatre. Perhaps OA should take a leaf out of the songbooks of Melbourne Opera and The Australian Ballet and consider hiring the ineradicable Regent Theatre on Collins Street, where AB will soon present Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet, Oscar (dutiful balletomanes are sure to be dyeing their carnations and perming their locks in preparation for the Wildean opening night on 13 September).

In recent weeks, however, the national company has given us two recitals: a gala concert featuring the music of Giacomo Puccini; and Freddie De Tommaso’s concert débuts (Sydney and Melbourne). Of these, despite the vaunted centenary of the great Italian’s death on 29 November 2024, the young British tenor’s recital was the more appreciable, only partly because of its more intimate setting (Elisabeth Murdoch Hall).

De Tommaso’s ascent to stardom has been rapid. We all know that he stepped in after Act One and ‘saved’ a production of Tosca at the Royal Opera House in 2021, becoming the youngest singer to perform the role of Cavaradossi at Covent Garden, and the first Briton to do so since 1963. Since then he has repeated the role in Santa Fe, Verona, and Moscow. Other roles include Riccardo, Pollione, Rodolfo, Pinkerton, Don José, Alfredo, and Macduff – in cities like Vienna, Munich, and Milan. Already – barely thirty – he has a recording contract with Decca, and two discs to date, Passione and Il Tenore.

Sunday night’s program – before a capacity audience (word had clearly travelled) – was generous: no fillers from the excellent accompanist, Kate Johnson, and only brief pauses between the brackets. There were three arias and twelve songs, mostly Neapolitan ones – clearly dear to the young tenor’s heart. ‘Amor ti vieta’ from Giordano’s Fedora, and a less well-known aria from I Lombardi, were quietly sacrificed, at least in Melbourne. ‘Recondita armonia’, from Tosca, coming early in the program, posed no threats for De Tommaso. ‘Cielo e mar’, from La Gioconda, was ardently sung, full-throttled from the perilously exposed ‘Cielo’ at the art of this marathon aria, something that Jonas Kaufmann could not manage at last year’s concert performance for OA in Sydney. 

The first half ended on a charming note. De Tommaso was joined on stage by his new wife, the ENO soprano Alexandra Oomens, They sang the wondrous Cherry Duet from L’amico fritz of Pietro Mascagni (not ‘Masagni’, as in the program).

Best of all – perhaps unexpectedly – were the Neapolitan offerings, from the outset: Paolo Tosti’s ‘Marechaire’, a folk-inflected song requiring considerable vocal dexterity and fluidity. All evening, De Tommaso, perhaps responding to the enthusiastic welcome from the Melbourne audience, grew stronger, freer, more impassioned. He is capable of the subtlest pianissimo singing (as in Tosti’s ‘Ideale’), but it is the burnished tone and the ringing high notes that will doubtless keep this likeable young artist in much demand for decades to come.

Instead of the ubiquitous ‘Nessun dorma’, which he sang on his second album (let’s hope he stays away from Calaf for some years), De Tommaso sang one encore: Arthur Sullivan’s sentimental and resonant ‘The Lost Chord’, composed at the bedside of Sullivan’s dying brother in 1877, and sung – apropos of absolutely nothing – by Enrico Caruso at a Met benefit concert after the sinking of the Titanic.

Nicole Car, Young Woo Kim and Orchestra Victoria in The Puccini Gala (photograph by Jeff Busby)

The Puccini concert, three weeks earlier, was a mixed bag. Hamer Hall was well attended, in spite of the Covidic withdrawal of the Maltese-born tenor Joesph Calleja. Replacing him was Young Woo Kim, who had made his Australia début in OA’s production of Tosca at the Margaret Court Arena in May. I missed that grand slam, but the South Korean tenor seems to have made an impression as Caravadossi, as he did at Garsington last year, when John Allison, writing in The Telegraph, said of his Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos: ‘with tirelessly ringing tone Young Woo Kim proves himself quite a revelation and a new heroic tenor to watch’.

One could see why at the Gala. In his arias from La Fanciulla del West, La Bohème, Manon Lescaut, and Tosca, Kim sang with impressive volume, accuracy, and expressiveness. Nicole Car, now a frequent guest in some of Europe’s major houses, made a welcome return to her home city. At times, the acoustic in the vast Hamer Hall threatened to eclipse her, especially when, in character, she sang to her colleagues, not the audience. Car was at her best in ‘Vissi d’arte’ and a scene from Act Three of Bohème (‘Senza rancor’ and the luminous quartet that follows).

Peter Coleman-Wright, our host, avoided the saccharine in his pithy introductions and biographical asides. He joined the other artists from time to time, reminding us of his powerful Scarpia in a scene from Puccini’s greatest creation: Act Two of Tosca.

Julie Lea Goodwin vamped it up as Musetta – even goosing the remarkably mobile conductor, Daniel Smith – but her finest singing came in ‘Chi il bel sogno’ from La Rondine, Puccini’s antepenultimate full-length opera.

The Puccini Gala Concert was presented at Hamer Hall, Art Centre Melbourne on 25 and 27 July 2024 (the former was attended). Freddie De Tommaso: Il Tenore in Concert was presented at the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre on 18 August (a week after the first performance, in the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House).