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| Maayan Licht © Filip Adamus |
Surrounded by the sparkling Christmas
illuminations dominating the precincts of the Jerusalem International YMCA on the
evening of December 24th 2025, crowds of people were enjoying a concert of
Christmas carols and other melodies played by Professor Gabi Scheffler on the
YMCA's 36-bell carillon. The event in the auditorium, Concert No.4 of the
Israel Camerata Jerusalem's InstruVocal Series, was conducted by Camerata
founder/music director Maestro Avner Biron. SOPRANO SENZA MASCHERA featured
soloists Maayan Licht (male soprano) and Matan Dagan (violin).
Opening the festive event was Ms. Wendy
Aryeh, chair of the board of the Jerusalem International YMCA. She spoke about
the YMCA's work and of its new projects. As to the concert's title, "Senza
maschera" (Italian) translates as "without a mask" or
"unmasked", meaning to reveal one's true self, face, or identity,
removing any disguise or pretence. Maayan Licht (b.Israel,1993) has wasted no
time in soaring high into the international concert scene, performing male
soprano roles, many of which are integral to Baroque opera. This was Licht’s
first concert in Jerusalem.
The program commenced with the French-style
overture to G.F.Handel's opera "Agrippina". With its emphasis on the
oboe as a solo instrument, the Camerata's playing was fresh, rich in ideas and
certainly much more convivial than the opera's various corrupt, greedy, and
depraved characters! A major part of the program consisted of solo vocal
numbers from works of Handel. From "Rinaldo", we
heard "Lascia ch'io pianga" (Let me weep), with Licht evoking
Almirena's despair, his singing beautifully ornamented in the repeated section, then to
his exciting, virtuosic performance of the aria "Venti
turbini" (Winds and tempests) with bassoon obbligato. As the evening progressed, the audience became
progressively more aware of Maayan Licht's well-anchored, flexible singing, his
rich vocal colour, dynamic range and fine phrasing, his theatrical
expressiveness, his faultless memory and the astonishing technical prowess he
engages to incorporate all of these elements. Take, for example, his
performance of "Un pensiero nemico di pace" (A thought that is
an enemy of peace) from Handel's oratorio "Il trionfo del tiempo e del
disinganno" (The Triumph of Time and Truth), the aria’s frenetic outer
sections brimming with melismatic runs, contrasted with the intimate,
reflective middle section in which the voice duets with the 'cello. Licht also
performed excerpts from operas of Vivaldi and Geminiano Giacomelli. The first
performance of Giacomelli's opera "Merope" must have been a
grand event in the Venice Carnival season of 1734, featuring the two most
celebrated castrati singers of the time - Farinelli and Cafarelli. The opera
itself then fell into complete oblivion, save for one aria, “Sposa, non mi conosci”
(Spouse/Wife, you don't know me) sung by the character Epitide (written for
Farinelli). Licht's performance of the aria highlighted its pathos,
suspense and sudden outbursts of vehemence, his ornamenting and melismatic passagework
keeping the audience at the Jerusalem YMCA at the edge of their seats.
It was time to catch one's breath!
J.S.Bach's fascination with- and his supreme mastery of the Italian concerto
style is heard in Violin Concerto No.2 in E Major BWV 1042. Camerata
concertmaster Matan Dagan performed the solo role at the Jerusalem concert. His reading of it was ordered
and sincere, the outer movements unmannered, indeed, played in accordance with
the stipulations as to the individual’s expression within the hierarchy of the
princedom. The Adagio (2nd movement), featuring a long-drawn-out ostinato,
with the violin's intricate musings and free-flowing, doleful solo
melody, emerged graceful and introspective.
With the concert taking place on Christmas
Eve, Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto grosso No. 8 - more commonly known as the
Christmas Concerto - fitted the bill. Biron and the Camerata players gave a
splendid reading of the concerto, highlighting both its joy and its mystery.
Having played out its contrasts, its dissonances and counterpoint with
precision and verve, the delicate beauty of the Pastorale, subtitled
"Fatto per la notte di Natale" ("Made for Christmas Night")
drew the work to a close in hushed contemplation.
Following a joyous, carefully controlled,
elaborate and beautifully contrasted performance of "Rejoice Greatly, O
Daughter of Zion" from Handel's "Messiah", Maayan Licht had a
surprise in store for those attending the concert - not another dazzling
Baroque aria, but the Habanera from Bizet's "Carmen". Candid,
theatrical and arresting, the artist thrilled the audience with his lavish
singing, his facial expression and body language, creating his own connection with
the unrestricted, fierce, mercurial and playfully alluring gypsy character, as she imparts her lesson on seduction in this aria.
Maestro Biron and the Camerata instrumentalists addressed the works on the program attentively, endorsing the meaning of each with careful detail, elegance and precision.
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