BARITONE GIVES A MEMORABLE RECITAL

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 18, 1993                   TAG: 9301180012
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
BARITONE GIVES A MEMORABLE RECITAL
Wow! Nicholas Loren was tremendous in his recital Sunday afternoon at Greene Memorial United Methodist Church.
The young baritone, who electrified Opera Roanoke audiences in "The Barber of Seville" a year ago this past fall, showed he is just as comfortable in the world of song ason the opera stage. There's more competition than ever in vocal music today, but many who heard Loren Sunday afternoon must have left with the feeling they'd glimpsed a future star.
In fact, in groping for ways to describe this young artist's impact, names such as Thomas Allen, Olaf Bar and Thomas Hampson repeatedly came to mind. It's a pleasure to anticipate his upcoming performance as Danilo in "The Merry Widow" in May and the great role of Rigoletto in the fall of 1994.
Loren's set, which was accompanied by pianist Judith Clark, ranged from Handel to Verdi to Gershwin. Whether by chance or design, many of the songs dealt with themes of farewell and loss. Loren's big baritone filled the nave of Greene Memorial effortlessly, and he was in as good or better voice than when he sang the role of the cocky Figaro in his Opera Roanoke debut.
Loren began with "nel cor piu non mi sento" of Giovanni Paisiello, a lover's complaint against Love. Next was "Cara sposa" from Handel's "Rinaldo," the first of the evening's songs of loss. The singer laments the passing of his wife, pausing briefly to rail against the spirits of death before subsiding again into grief. Loren was deeply moving here, and especially effective with the decorative passages.
"Furibondo spira il vento" from Handel's "Partenope" was similarly filled with difficult ornamentation, trills and lovely melismas. It may have been somewhat of a surprise for those of us who know Loren only as Figaro to hear him deal so expertly and sensitively with this baroque material.
OK, I do have one small beef. When Loren moved to a set of lieder by Franz Schubert immediately after the highly dramatic Handel arias, he remained a little too powerful and full-bore for the material. Schubert songs demand a more intimate, sometimes even playful delivery, but it took a couple of lieder before Loren shook off the highly charged emotiveness of the Handel.
The Schubert songs included "Die Forelle," "Auf dem Wasser zu singen," "Litanei" and "Der Musensohn." The hushed piety with which Loren infused "Litanei" ("Litany"), a somewhat atypical devotional song, was moving.
Ambroise Thomas' rather florid setting of "To Be or Not to Be" from his opera "Hamlet" is little-known today. Loren also chose the "Chanson Bachique" from the same work.
After intermission, the baritone turned in a searingly dramatic "Cortigiani, vil razza" from Verdi's "Rigoletto." This aria earned loud cheers and extended applause.
Next was Victoria Bond's "Good-bye, my Fancy," another song of farewell that must rank as one of the most engaging and accessible short pieces this reviewer has heard from the RSO's music director.
Three short songs by Richard Hundley maintained the evening's theme with "Evening Hours" and its refrain of "I miss you" and the brief and slyly humorous "Epitaph on a Wife."
Five Gershwin classics (including the little-known "The Babbit and the Bromide") capped the program and led to an immediate standing ovation with noisy cheering.
This evoked a burn-down-the-house encore of - guess what - Loren's hit aria "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's "Barber," which most of the audience had seen, judging from their delighted reaction. Judy Clark began the music alone on stage, and Loren surprised the crowd by emerging from the narthex and singing his way down the middle aisle of the nave. Yet another standing ovation followed this one.
Nicholas Loren called it a night with a final encore of the spiritual "This Little Light of Mine."

Seth Williamson produces feature news stories and a classical music program on public radios station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB