The young Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee who made his debut at the Met last month to much acclaim in the title role of Verdi’s Don Carlo appeared for the first time on the Met’s Saturday afternoon broadcasts yesterday – again as Don Carlo. His voice was much more appropriate for the part than was the over matched Roberto Alagna who sang most of the performances of this run of Verdi’s great opera. Lee has a dark spinto voice that is vaguely reminiscent of Franco Corelli – only with good taste. Lee has a bright sound with baritonal overtones and is capable of singing long stretches of music very softly while still maintaining full vocal support.
Here is the wonderful duet that concludes Verdi’s dark masterpiece. The soprano is Marina Poplavskaya. The conductor is Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Incidently, his reading of the last performance of the series was much faster than the first. The first act (really the first two done without an interval) yesterday was 7 minutes shorter than on the premiere. Don Carlo final duet
Mr Lee returns to the Met next season in Nabucco and Carmen.
“vaguely reminiscent of Franco Corelli – only with good taste.”
Ouch!!!!
…..I do have to admit his Ingemisco in the Verdi Requiem was quite sensual…….OK quite sexy. But who else would I go to the Requiem for??? Bumbry, then a mezzo was also over the top, visually too wearing hot, hot pink. Ezio Flagello was glorious.
I heard Mr. Lee live on Dec 15th and I was blown away. His voice is magnificent. I just got chills every time he opened his mouth. I haven’t been blown away by a tenor since I heard Carreras make his debut at the Met years ago in Boheme. Overall I thought the performance was fabulous, although I didn’t much care for Eboli.
i too was blown away by his don carlo at his debut in the house . . . the voice has real body and a an often brilliant top — certainly more suited to don carlo than alagna
. . . sorry to say, though, that on the broadcast i found huis voice simply less beautiful than i had expected [and hoped] . . . this is in part a lack of the italianate [or latinate] quality that, for all their differences, singers as disparate as pavarotti and corelli shared . . . lee has some of the corelli heft and brilliance but without the warmth in the tone . . . and, without anything to attend to but the quality of the sound [pure size being less significant in MET broadcasts given the kinds of miking that they use] i sometimes found the technique a little messy
one question for the blogger: how do you already know what he’s doing next year at the MET? . . . where is this info available??
See the bio sketch here: http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/philpedia/artist-detail.cfm?id=4216
On the broadcast of Dec 18, I generally enjoyed Mr Lee’s, singing, but I must say that his voice was insufficiently warmed up for his opening aria (“Fontainebleu”) particularly in the line “Io la vidi, al suo sorris/oscintillar mi parve il sole”: too many corrections in intonation, with a forced delivery. Later, things evened out, and tje delivery sounded more comfortable. Judged from a streaming broadcast, 64 Kbps, WMA.