AN INTERNATIONAL SINGING COMPETITION IN GREECE

The Grand Prix Maria Callas 2009: Koreans show the world how it’s done! Grand Prix Maria Callas
We attended several sessions of this big international singing competition, held in Athens every two years: one Heat was at the Athenaeum, just below the Acropolis in the Plaka, on Tuesday March 10.

Huge Callas poster on the Athenaeum, Adrianou

A Semifinal was in the beautiful Dimitri Mitropoulos Hall at the Megaro Moussikis on Thursday March 12. The Finals were held in the main concert hall, the Friends of Music Hall, also at Megaro Moussikis, on Sunday March 15. We heard almost all the entrants at least once. The Megaro Moussikis is Athens’ beautiful new performing arts centre on Vassilis Sofias St. The prizes are reasonably attractive, with two first prizes of 9000 Euros.
We were surprised to find that there were very few Greek entrants. We heard two, both sopranos.
We met a very charming Athenian voice teacher who was also attending, and she was quite disparaging about the state of classical singing in Greece. She said that young Greek singers lacked the self-discipline to achieve in this field. One third of the Greek population of 11 million lives in Greater Athens, so it’s really surprising that so few young Greek singers were in the competition. However it is important to note that Greece does not have the art music infrastructure of many other Western countries, and indeed, as the long history of Ottoman occupation may indicate, Greece has much of the East in its history. On the other hand, we did hear a wonderful concert of string quartets by recent and contemporary Greek composers, finely performed, during our time in Athens, and also a very interesting concert in which music from classical Greek antiquity was recreated. A wide variety of instruments was used, constructed using depictions from sculpture, reliefs, and paintings on pottery.

Antique Music Ensemble

There was one talented Greek finalist, a coloratura soprano, Zinovia Maria Zafeiriadou, and of the six winners, four were Korean.
There were many Korean entrants. The best singers were all Korean, apart from one Italian-American mezzo-soprano, Jennifer Borghi.
The adjudication panel, of ten, included some very distinguished people: Cheryl Studer, who was the President of the jury, Luigi Alva, Yevgenij Nestorenko, Peter Katona.
We heard a lot of sopranos, many of them coloraturas. Few were outstanding. And we heard very few men at all. All the good men were Korean. Strangely, many of the Korean women tended to have very noticeable tremoli.
The winner in the women’s section was was Yun Jeong Lee, the only really outstanding Korean soprano. In the Final, she sang Die Hoelle Rache from Die Zauberfloete, and E strano! from La traviata, with flawless technique, a beautiful operatic instrument, fine musicality, dramatic intensity, and beautiful articulation. She really deserved to win, and she was an audience favourite. For the men, the winner was Jaesig Lee, a very interesting lyric Italian-style tenor.We also heard a fine bass, Young Kun Jang, a lovely, artistic mezzo-soprano, Jung Mi Kim, and a terrific Verdi baritone, Jong Hoon Heo.
The earlier rounds of the competition required some art song from the competitors, and it was noticeable that even those who presented very creditable operatic arias did not always shine in art song. Often languages were not good enough, but also evident were weaknesses in musicianship, artistic conscientiousness, and imagination, in musical passion, and a certain je ne sais quoi …
However, a thoroughly committed performance of some wonderful song simply has the capacity to reach out and completely engage the listener-well, definitely this listener! One Korean baritone, Dong Hwan Lee, gave a marvellous performance of Schubert’s magnificent Der Atlas, for example.
Following the competition and listening to the final with orchestral accompaniment was a fascinating and fun experience, even if not completely musically fulfilling.
For some great photos from the comp, see Parsival
Prizewinners