ON Saturday in a packed Ardrishaig Hall, the vocal duo, ‘Alma’ with pianist, Robert Melling, presented a highly enjoyable recital for the Mid Argyll Arts Association and the programme, in five sections, was positively ingenious in its variety.
Wilma MacDougall (soprano) is a great favourite in Argyll, hailing as she does from Tarbert, whose music lovers turned out in force to welcome her and partner, Colette Ruddy (mezzo-soprano).
‘Alma’ opened with five neatly contrasting songs by Purcell, the central one being the stately duet, ‘Sound the Trumpet’, which was sung with great sense of occasion.
Mendelssohn’s version of a Burns’ poem ‘O wert thou in a cauld blast’ was the first of the five Lieder, with superb tone and control particularly demonstrated by Wilma in Richard Strauss’ ‘Morgen’. But from the outset, it was clear that both voices blended exquisitely with each other, as duets alternated with solos.
Before the section of Scottish songs, Robert performed ‘Farewell to Stromness’ by Peter Maxwell Davies, a haunting short piece given a sensitive rendering.
Seven widely ranging songs charting life’s journey and all performed with humour and feeling brought us to the interval – Colette’s ‘The Fidgety Bairn’ being particularly entertaining.
It was then the turn of opera with Romberg, Bizet, Offenbach, Bellini and Delibes, all with interesting spoken preludes. Amina’s sleepwalking aria from ‘La Sonnambula’ was dramatic in the extreme and the flower duet from ‘Lakmé’ by Delibes merited the ecstatic applause that followed.
Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ was Robert’s second choice of piano solo – again a fine sensitive performance – before Colette and Wilma really ‘let their hair down’ with songs from shows, stage and screen. In a one-off song by Tesori, Colette was brilliant in her depiction of the poor flat dweller in 14G, hoping for a quiet life but sandwiched between a regular practising opera singer above in 15G and an enthusiastic rapper below in 13G, both played by Wilma!
As an encore, they performed an exquisite duet version of ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ before the audience with sustained applause, showing their appreciation to Alma for this memorable concert.
