Brighton Year-Round 2024
St Nicholas Soprano Mandy Ching Man Liu and Pianist Mia Miaoyan Li Recital
Mandy Ching Man Liu and Mia Miaoyan Li
Genre: Live Music
Venue: St Nicholas Church, Dyke Road, Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
Soprano Mandy Ching Man Liu and pianist Mia Miaoyan Li who both eventually graduated from Trinity Laban mount a recital bounded with a few favourites and some original repertoire.
Liu has both power and joy, precision and range. Li as pianist has aplomb and discretion in equal measure and it might be good to hear a solo from her too, as often happens in such recitals these days.
Review
Soprano Mandy Ching Man Liu and pianist Mia Miaoyan Li who both eventually graduated from Trinity Laban after much study (and in non musical subjects) elsewhere mount a recital bounded with a few favourites and some original repertoire.
Rossini’s Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia) is in Liu’s repertoire and she’s sung Rosina. Her way with ‘Una vice poco’ is open and exuberant like all her singing.
It’s almost obliterated by what must stand as the centrepiece of this recital cone early. It’s for unaccompanied voice.
Liu has also sung Ariel in Jonathan Dove’s Try Me Good King. It’s a 13-minute exploration and narrative of Ariel’s experience including their final release. Liu also brings out the sheer boppiness of Dove’s lines but also the drama.
Long coloratura lines are interrupted with whispers and fragments if Shakespeare’s dialogue. Mostly though it’s gloriously westward tonal swoops and flights, Eddie’s and plunges. Liu is phenomenal here.
Mozart’s Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflote follows the ‘Der Holle Rache’ with it’s ferocious ridge of dotted notes at the top of the soprano range. Liu nails the notes though the acoustic, so supportive of Ariel seems over-rich for crystalline Mozart. Deeply impressive though. Liu has sung in Mozart’s Serail and Nozze di Figaro and it would be good to see her tackle this role too. Perhaps at Grimeborne where she sang last year
Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix is lesser known (at least the UK wound get snobby about a heroine called Linda). But as someone brought to their senses by remembered song (‘Ah tardai troppo…’) it’s a spellbinding piece of dramatic coloratura from Liu, and I’m delighted to know it and a bit about the opera.
Poulenc’s Le Dialogue des Carmelites is far better known and it’s shattering end seated into anyone who’s heard it. Liu takes Blanche the timorous heroine’s ‘Encore ces maudits’ and makes it harrow with Poulenc’s off-centre melodies darkened here to doubt and broken lines. Another highlight.
Offenbach and delight to finish with. Les Contes d’Hofmann brings out the exuberant best in Liu in ‘Les Oiseaux dans la charmille’. With its swoops and flights it’s a literal flight for Ki’s exuberant and soaring soprano range. It’s absolute musical joy wrapped in mischief wrapped in virtuosity.
Liu has both power and joy, precision and range. Li as pianist has aplomb and discretion in equal measure and it might be good to hear a solo from her too, as often happens in such recitals these days.
It would be good to hear Liu and Li again. And if Liu returns to Dalston for Grimeborne or one day somewhere even more exalted, she’ll be worth hearing. Especially as she brings adventure and the unexpected.
