RTECO/Proinnsias O Duinn

Last Friday's orchestral concert at the NCH was misnamed. "The World of Great Classics" is inappropriate for eleven pieces by Delibes, Donizetti, German, Gliere, Offenbach, Rossini, Schubert and Waldteufel, especially when many of these composers were represented by music which is neither well-known nor remarkable. The programme, which had been played the previous evening in Kilkenny, seemed designed for easy listening and undemanding fun. "Classic" has joined the growing ranks of words without meaning.

The RTECO and Proinnsias O Duinn were not on their most polished form, but much of the playing was sufficiently well-characterised to catch the contrasts of style between, for example, Rossini's Silken Ladder Overture, Schubert's ballet music from Rosamunde and Waldteufel's Skaters' Waltz.

Soprano Barbara Kilduff sang four works and in all of them she fulfilled the primary requirements of coloratura singing - accuracy, facility and consistent tone throughout a wide range. Yet her sound was rather monochrome, and while this was not a serious limitation in arias by Offenbach, Donizetti and Delibes, it did no favours for the Concerto for Coloratura by the Russian composer Gliere. Written in 1943, this wordless vocalisation epitomises the soft-centred excesses of Soviet kitsch. Its pretensions would have been veiled by a performance less concerned with display.