Musée d’Orsay Metro

A moment of musical ecstasy
An excellent critique has already been published by opera cake. However, I do not understand why no others have been written! There has not been a Winterreise sung and accompanied like this for many a year. The auditorium was packed and you could have heard a pin drop after the first melody. The audience was simply struck dumb at the talent and projected emotion from this 28 year-​old French-​Irish baritone who sang the 24 components of the Winterreise without stopping — as is customary — but what was so unusual was the rising pent up emotion of singer and audience that had to wait an hour and ten minutes before it could fully express itself in a thunderous crash of applause and bravissimi. In order to thank his audience for their gratitude so vociferously and enthusiastically expressed, the young baritone, thought that it would be most appropriate to address them in French and sang three encores: Romance, Clair de Lune and Elégie with vocal freshness and mastery which brought the hall to its feet when the final score was folded away by Professor Skigin, his subtle Russian virtuoso accompanist. He sang out TO the public; he reached out TO them, singing FOR them to thank them. The satisfaction of those who had filled the hall chock-​a-​block and the the happiness of those on the stage could not have been greater. If someone else more competent than I does not commit this unforgettable moment to paper, I shall begin to have my doubts about the love of the French (who were not there), Schubert and the German language. Mark my words, even though I am an amateur: «France and Ireland have an unquestionable claim to a baritone, the like of whose gifts has not been seen in far more mature singers in at least a decade. I would conclude by emphasizing that his diction in French and in German is as impeccable as his English. Now, just how many others are there like him?