Two Korean sopranos

Two willowy and winsome Korean sopranos – Seo Dug Nam and the mezzo Bae Ji Yeon – gave the audience sheer delight and enjoyment at the F. Santiago Hall last week with a program of classic and contemporary arias and a few Korean songs. Both wore elegant Western gowns rather than their native costumes.

Refined, polished and highly trained, the two complemented each other, Nam’s voice rather thin but sweet; Yeon’s full-bodied, forceful and well-modulated.

The soprano opened the program with "Summertime" from Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, following this with Rachmaninoff’s celebrated vocal exercise Vocalise, a song without words, sung on a vowel, with its melodic line soaring beautifully.

The mezzo was profoundly moving in a Korean song composed in a minor key, as also in Handel’s Lasca chio Planga and C. Caccini’s Ave Maria, the words in the latter consisting only of Ave Maria delivered reverentially throughout. It was as inspiring as could be imagined, the singer carefully articulating the two words in legato phrases. In all her songs, she consistently demonstrated superb control of dynamics, alternating pianissimos with gradual, long-sustained, powerful fortissimos.

The duos – a bubbly, sparkling selection from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and the gentle, swaying, undulating Barcarolle from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann showed each singer’s strong lyrical vein. With the closest rapport, they brought the duets to vibrant life.

A high note of the evening was the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen which perfectly suited the mezzo soprano’s timbre. Her stage impersonation of a flirt conveyed a certain inhibition typical of Orientals, but her vocal interpretation was arresting, indeed compelling. So was her exquisite phrasing in "My heart at thy sweet voice" from Saint-Saëns’ opera Samson and Delilah.

Soprano Seo Dug Nam had her own moment of glory in The Telephone. Menotti’s tour de force, and more particularly, in Glitter and Be Gay, the Jewel Song from Bernstein’s Candide whose pyrotechnics the singer executed with skill and considerable vibrancy and aplomb.

The duo closed the program to lusty applause with Dome a pais le Jasmin from Delibes’ Lakmé, and the vastly amusing Story of Two Cats by Rossini, the singers portraying cats exchanging "meows" from start to finish, their widely varied nuances made fascinating by their contrasting timbres.

For an encore, the soprano sang Our Father in Korean, her expression touchingly prayerful; the mezzo rendered a Korean song in her usual dignified, highly soulful manner.

Concert pianist J. Greg Zuñiega was an impeccable assisting artist who fully deserved a major share of the limelight.

The singers were virtually "smothered" by bouquets from adoring Korean youngsters. Heading the full house were newly arrived Korean Ambassador and Mrs. Myung-Hwan Yu.