Non-Russian Fare Stymies Singers

An evening of Russian and Italian opera excerpts served as the second and final performance by the touring Russian National Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday night.

Alexander Vedernikov, recently appointed as music director of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, led this engaging program, his soloists two popular Russian singers well known in Southern California.

In the Russian half of the program, soprano Galina Gorchakova and baritone Sergei Leiferkus excelled in arias by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, their vocal and dramatic abilities nicely displayed.

In the first half, in familiar music by Puccini and Verdi, both singers proved the opposite of comfortable and were very often in vocal trouble.

Gorchakova, who appeared last season with the opera companies of Los Angeles and San Diego and who is scheduled to return to San Diego next spring in Bellini’s “Norma,” made the most of the showcase that is Tatyana’s Letter Scene in “Eugene Onegin.” But earlier, in arias from “Tosca” and Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur” and in the Di Luna/Leonora duet from “Il Trovatore,” the soprano from Siberia labored regularly and sang inconsistently, very often off-pitch.

Similarly, Leiferkus, who has been much admired in previous visits here, made some unpleasant and non-Italianate sounds in arias from “Otello” and “Macbeth” and the “Trovatore” excerpt. Later, when he got to Aleko’s cavatina from Rachmaninoff’s “Aleko,” his singing became surprisingly mellifluous and persuasive.

Throughout, Vedernikov and the orchestra were model collaborators. By itself, the ensemble handsomely played excerpts from “Luisa Miller,” “Manon Lescaut,” “The Masked Ball” and “Onegin.” At the end, it bravely essayed a non-operatic piece, Liapunov’s glib transcription of Balakirev’s “Islamey,” a legendary piano piece that in this version was more colorful than substantial.

As it had Tuesday, the orchestra began the evening by playing the U.S. and Russian national anthems. Both nights, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was in the key of C, which can be a stretch for those used to singing it in B flat.