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Farnsworth wins amid revelry
REVIEW: INTERNATIONAL SONG COMPETITION
Wigmore Hall
THE status of the Wigmore Hall as the world’s pre-eminent venue for song was confirmed once more by the high quality of singing during its International Song Competition.
More than 100 singers from around the world took part in the competition.
Winner was baritone Marcus Farnsworth, currently a member of the Royal Academy Opera.
Among his recent engagements was a joint recital at the Oxford Lieder Festival with mezzo-soprano Sara Connolly, who sang so magnificently at the Last Night of the Proms. His singing style is expressive but simple, forceful without being ostentatious.
Among pieces in his winning 30-minute recital were
Schubert’s Nachstuck D672, Richard Strauss’s Gefunden Op56 No1; and Benjamin Britten’s arrangement of The Last Rose of Summer.
Notable were rowdy French drinking, madrigal and bacchic songs by Francis Poulenc.
One verse warned girls against trying to be thin: “A girl without tits is a partridge without orange.” Just to show Wigmore Hall audiences are not just stuffed shirts, the verse got a great guffaw.
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