Wednesday February 17th, 2016 - No one in the realm of classical music needs to be told the background of tonight's Carnegie Hall recital by the great baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. He has, since his 1989 winning of the Cardiff Competition, become one of the most admired and beloved of artists; his current personal health battle has his devotees worldwide praying for him and pulling for him. Now, for the second time since his diagnosis, he has come to New York City to honor his commitments to sing for us.
Carnegie Hall was completely sold out, and the applause greeting Dima and his pianist, the excellent Ivari Ilja, was particularly warm. The program was a taxing one for the voice - songs by Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss - and Hvorostovsky sang with his characteristic generosity, tenderness, and passion. It is - and always has been - a uniquely beautiful voice, one of the very very few today that gives such constant and pleasing rewards.
A bit of sharpness in the first Glinka song soon vanished as the voice warmed to the hall. As the Glinka set continued, the caressive warmth of the voice came to the fore. Always a singer possessed of a vast dynamic range, Dima tonight moved impressively from haunting soft passages to thrillingly sustained, powerful top notes, and everything was coloured with emotional hues from longing to tranquility to regret.
Rimsky-Korsakov's "Not the wind, blowing from the heights" was an especially marvelous rendering in the evening's first half, and - after the interval - Hvorostovsky gave us some of the Tchaikovsky romances that have been among his signature pieces: songs that he has helped to popularize throughout the world. These were beautifully voiced.
In the evening's concluding group of Strauss songs, so familiar yet so welcome in these hauntingly sung interpretations, Hvorostovsky expressiveness was at full flourish.
One audience distraction after another intruded on the evening, but these complaints we will set aside for now, and feel instead a sense of gladness just to have been there.