Dawn Upshaw Review (Melbourne)

Clive O'Connell, The Age, 2 February 2009

The Australian Chamber Orchestra is on tour with soprano Dawn Upshaw, who had to cancel her 2003 concerts here due to serious illness. Clearly her recovery has been solid, with no signs of fatigue or production problems in her contribution of works by Osvaldo Golijov, Bartok and Richard Strauss.

In fact, the obvious shortcomings came from the ACO itself; not the central core of strings, but some guest wind players for two Mozart works.

To celebrate artistic director Richard Tognetti's 20th anniversary leading this hallmark ensemble, Perth composer James Ledger produced Restless Night, a spiky, entertaining bagatelle with a wry conclusion well suited to its dedicatee's personality. The following performance of Mozart's A Major Symphony No. 29 came across as finely prepared by the strings but the pairs of horns and oboes playing original or replica instruments sounded shaky, particularly at entry points, unsettling the ACO's usual flawless fabric. Matters improved after interval with a firm account of the Sinfonia Concertante K. 364, Tognetti taking the solo violin line and ACO principal Christopher Moore supplying a solid counterweight viola.

But the afternoon belonged to Upshaw, displaying her artistry not just through technique but in consistently involving interpretations, even in music that reveals a distracting wealth of references and influences.