What an exhilarating experience to be present when John MacNally, whose estimable tenor voice is recognized in much of Europe and Australia as one of the finest ever to come out of Ireland, befriended New York.
It was a different sort of concert for Lincoln Center--less formal than the usual fare for that venerable performing-arts Mecca. There was nearly as much talk as music, and the musical and conversational threads were both integral to the experiential fabric in which MacNally dressed the evening for his audience.
Excerpts from a wash of humor as fluidly good-natured as an Irish cream: "Well, thank you all for coming...I'm happy you came because it would be a terrible bore here, standing up here singing by myself...That's what all singers do, you know, whether you like it or not they sing what they think they sing best, and hope that maybe it's what you wanted to hear, too." And again, en route to a side table for his second drink of water: "Those of you who're wondering what's in the glass--you're right. Comes a shocking silence, you know, when I'm off here getting a drink. So if you could keep the applause going till I'm finished."
There was, of course, more than food humor. There was also splendid singing. In his Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall, this very astute entertainer not only delivered a virtually flawless performance of two dozen widely varied materials, including some handsomely communicated German lieder and the traditional French "Plaisir d'Amour," but John MacNally also endeared himself to his public with the easy grace and sincere humanity that characterize his approach to both his art and his audience.
Typical of both the character and the skill of McNally's work for the evening was the selection "Little Town in Auld County Down," whose middle-register final tone MacNally lofted up an octave with singular grace and without a trace of self-consciousness.
His is a Mozart-sized voice, well used. One never doubted whether his voice would last through two hours of singing. That is evidence of a well-practiced technique. His fine breath control, moreover, would arouse the envy of any singer.
MacNally, who has sung opera, made a decision early in his professional life to engage in a broader spectrum of styles than are traditionally available to singers who concentrate on classical repertoire. He has appeared extensively in Europe and in his adopted home, Australia, doing just that--very engagingly.
It goes against the grain of some classical traditions that one of the arias performed by MacNally, who is billed as a tenor, was one of the baritone Papageno's arias from Mozart's Die Zauberflaute, and I should like to have heard more of his upper register than is demanded by some of the materials he offers. At the same time, his lower register, which is more extensive than expected of men who sing tenor, has a handsome color.
The second half of the program got under way after MacNally, leaning on the piano good-naturedly as late-returning hearers drifted back to their seats, announced with a grin, "Well, I'm glad you all come back--that's always the crunch, you know." This portion of the evening was
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