Il Divo & Orchestra in Concert

Apart from the concert starting 15 minutes late, and the interval running over by at least ten minutes, and some of the lighting seeming to go slightly haywire during the first half, and the program being hideously overpriced (not only $20, as most expensive and overvalued programs are, but rather an unheard of $30 for what was essentially a bunch of photos – you’d be better saving the money for a deposit on a house), there wasn’t all that much to complain about. The audience, buzzing with anticipation, waited rather patiently for the four members of Il Divo – Urs Buhler, Sebastien Izambard, Carlos Marin, and David Miller – to take to the stage, not even considering starting a slow clap to hurry things along when sound-man after sound-man dawdled around the stage, casually flicking a light on here, taping a piece of paper onto the floor there; could they not, this critic wondered, have taped the paper before the audience was let into the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House? But then the orchestra filed onto the platform, and the conductor Simon Chalk took his position, and the concert started, Il Divo given a partial standing ovation before they’d even sung a word.

When detailing the positive aspects of this concert, one should first mention – with much appreciation – how well the sound engineers balanced the show. The Concert Hall is renowned for its less-than-stellar acoustics, and as was evidenced with Natalie Cole with the Sydney Symphony earlier this month (and a few other examples), when the music gets loud it often becomes unintelligible, the booming speakers sending echo after echo around the Hall until the sound has all the structure of waves crashing against the rocks. Thankfully, for almost the entire concert under review, one’s ears were never blasted, nor did one have much trouble understanding the lyrics being sung (except when they weren’t in English, of course). So one is grateful for that.

There were 21 songs in the concert, and so one will endeavour to pick out the highlights. ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ was one, as was ‘Unchained Melody’ and ‘My Way’, which finished off the first half, a half filled with many Italian songs (including one entitled ‘Dove L’Amore’, based on Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’) and also a Valentine’s day gift to the Australian wife of Izambard, sitting in the stalls, who received a large bouquet of roses (which she presumably had to hold for the rest of the concert – romance is rarely pragmatic). A woman a few rows in front of this critic, who had been standing and applauding after each song, stood once more and turned to the wife to give her a standing ovation too, much to my amusement.

The second half found the members taking to the stage once more, a stage fitted out with a large screen behind, on which images were shown (and had been for the entire show). They were nothing particularly astounding, but gave the men in the audience something to look at if they became bored with the four singers on stage. The first highlight was ‘Melancolia’, based on Chris Izaak’s ‘Wicked Game’, and a Latin medley had many a woman in the audience twisting their hips in time with the music. A rendition of Roy Orbinson’s ‘Crying’ and ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story were both touching and stirring, while a subdued version (by Il Divo standards) of ‘Hallelujah’ provided a near-transcendent moment of beauty, Buhler particularly fine. The movement of the four singers on stage may have been somewhat corny, as they strode dramatically to their positions and waited for the light to hit them, but their banter was agreeable, as were they, and all in all it was a fine night’s entertainment.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Sydney Opera House
14–15 February 2012