Fra Diavolo Overture - Auber
Les nuits d'ete (exc)- Berlioz
Pelleas et Melisande Suite - Faure
Ah! Que j'aime les militaires Offenbach Belle Helene Overture - Offenbach
Tuesday's lunchtime orchestral concert at the National Concert Hall was absorbing and rewarding. The RTE Concert Orchestra and conductor Proinnsias O Duinn played a programme of 19th-century French music, mostly of high quality. It was effectively ordered to balance the serious against the light-hearted.
Faure's Pelleas et Melisande Suite was delicately coloured, suavely shaped and expressive. The same could be said of the long waltz sections in Offenbach's Belle Helene Overture, which also had plenty of riotous energy where appropriate.
The concert's highlights were associated with the singing of mezzo-soprano Colette McGahon. She sang two songs from Berlioz's Les nuits d'ete and chose a tough option in beginning with Le spectre de la rose, a haunting piece which needs impeccable vocal control. She and Proinnsias O Duinn were ambitious in setting such a leisurely pace and it did take a few bars to reach consistent vocal security. But, once there, McGahon was rivetting in her timing of music and text. She gave an equally intelligent account of the Villanelle, which had an air of ecstatic anticipation - far more appropriate than the all-too-common lightweight dash.
"Ah! Que j'aime les militaires", from Offenbach's La Grande-Duchesse de Gerol stein, is one of those comic songs which needs perfect timing. McGahon had it. So did the RTECO, throughout a concert with an extra edge of quality.
