NEW YORK — An old-fashioned, high-energy, and much-applauded operatic event took hold of 92NY’s storied mainstage, the Kaufmann Concert Hall, on May 6. Two beloved Metropolitan Opera regulars, soprano Erin Morley and tenor Lawrence Brownlee, presented arias and duets from 19th-century Italian and French repertoire with pianist Malcolm Martineau in valiant support.
92NY hosted the first great vocal program after the lockdown, Brownlee and self-described baritenor Michael Spyres‘ blazing October 2021 “Amici e Rivali” concert with pianist Myra Huang. Again last week, Brownlee was “touring behind” a new recording: his and Morley’s collaboration Golden Age on Pentatone with Ivan Repušić conducting the Munich Radio Orchestra. Where the two tenors concentrated on bel canto titans Rossini and Donizetti, tenor and soprano blended some of those composers’ titles with a broader definition.
Bel canto principles certainly shaped the operas of Verdi and Léo Delibes as well as the pre-Carmen Bizet. The program reflected a happy entertainment for a wider public than the sophisticated New York audiences 92NY usually draws for its classical vocal programming (for example, soprano Karen Slack’s fascinating African Queens program of commissions with pianist Kevin Miller in March 2025 and three stupendous Schubert cycle evenings featuring baritone Konstantin Krimmel and pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz in December 2025), but it was nonetheless a rousing success.
The highly worthwhile Brownlee-Morley CD includes music from Donizetti’s Marino Faliero; the concert’s chief novelty was “Ils verront si je mens!” from Bizet’s 1867 La jolie fille de Perth, which is not — as I heard one expert pronounce at intermission — the rare opera set in Australia. Rather, like Rossini’s La donna del lago (1819) and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), it’s based on the inexhaustible Walter Scott: his 1828 The Fair Maid of Perth, concerned with romance and warfare in 15th-century Scotland.
Bizet shaped the title role, Catharine Glover, for Christine Nilsson, the Golden Age Swedish prima donna who launched the Met in 1883’s Faust. But it was created by New Orleans-born Jeanne Devriès, a member of a Dutch-American family of francophone singers. Her nephew David left exquisite, old-style, floaty recordings of Bizet’s tenor arias from Carmen and Les pecheurs de pêrles.
That sense of float was all that was lacking in Brownlee’s otherwise superbly long-breathed, dynamically varied reading of Nadir’s “Je crois entendre encore,” extending to an impressive interpolated high C near the close. Devriès’ recording eschews the interpolation, but eminent Nadirs Nicolai Gedda, Alain Vanzo, Alfredo Kraus — the last of whom Brownlee mentioned at the concert as a role model — and Matthew Polenzani have reveled in it.
Brownlee has announced that he’ll soon undertake Rigoletto‘s Duke of Mantua. The Duke really needs to be significantly young only in the eyes of the jealous Rigoletto; charm and seductive singing can supply the rest. Historically, lighter tenori di grazia such as Alessandro Bonci and Tito Schipa sang the role, and more recently Brownlee’s Rossinian colleagues Barry Banks and Juan Diego Flórez have both essayed it successfully in medium-sized houses.
Brownlee has good working relations with Boston Lyric Opera (where he sang Mozart’s Mitridate) and Opera Philadelphia (where he tried out Rossini’s Rodrigo and created the title part in Daniel Schnyder’s Charlie Parker’s Yardbird); perhaps he’ll try Rigoletto there?
Kraus said in interviews that he could judge a Duke by whether or not he varied the dynamics on the initial word of this scoundrel’s most sympathetic moment, Act Two’s cavatina “Parmi veder le lagrime.” Brownlee more than passed this test and delivered the whole aria with forthright, fresh tone and well-sculpted phrasing. Kraus also topped the cabaletta “Possente amor” with an interpolated high D on Georg Solti’s 1963 recording and often in performance for decades afterwards. That too was — or at least sounded like — a piece of cake for Brownlee, a veteran of many a (written) Puritani high F.
Morley’s chances to dazzle came in a gossamer “Caro nome” (familiar from her 12 Met Gildas) and in “Où va la jeune indoue” from Lakmé. Her May 2022 Washington Concert Opera triumph in this part — once the near-exclusive property at the Met of the chic Lily Pons — showed how much New York is in need of a regular series of concert opera. (Delibes’ work is scenically expensive to mount, and its reflex Orientalism can pose serious problems for contemporary audiences; we last saw it locally at New York City Opera’s 1994 revival with a stellar Elizabeth Futral.)
Morley, in lustrous voice, was able to convey what many tweety-bird coloraturas miss: the paternal pressure the priestess is under in telling this particular story in a public setting. The lines were gorgeously drawn, and the difficult coloratura was immaculate; the audience responded with delirious applause (and the now sadly ubiquitous deafening whoops, imported from pro sports via Broadway musicals). The two artists had ended the first part of the program with Lakmé‘s more purely lyrical duet with the British officer Gérard, “D’ou viens-tu?…C’est le dieu de la jeunesse.”
The vocalism of both proved a treat to hear but reinforced the difference between Brownlee’s absolute concern with fully expressing verbal shadings in any language — a trademark of his career and a frequent talking point in his recent Manhattan School of Music and Carnegie Hall master classes —and Morley’s more passive approach. She is always prepared, poised, and utterly musical, but — and I found this true in a London outing in Hugo Wolf Lieder as well — she can sometimes define the difference between correctly enunciating foreign words and investing them with a full range of telling nuance. La fille du régiment‘s Act One duet displayed the practiced chemistry born of stage partnership.
Morley further demonstrated her musical mastery in joining the redoutable Martineau in a witty four-hand version of Carmen‘s “Chanson Bohème.” (Like the great Marcella Sembrich before her, this diva commands the piano.) It was that kind of evening. It ended blissfully with Don Pasquale‘s enchanting duo serenade “Tornami a dir.” Donizetti crafted this music for two of 1842’s greatest singers, Giulia Grisi and Mario (born Giovanni Matteo de Candia), renowned for charm as well as virtuosity. We were lucky to hear their worthy successors here.
