ALL the world loves a good tenor; and Tito Beltran is a very good tenor indeed.
Heard at his best as he was in Rinuccio's bravura aria from, Gianni Schicchi as well as in pieces like Una furtiva Iagrima and duets from Rigolelto and La Boheme, he is as good as any of his competitors in the highest echelons of the tenorial stakes. And he has more exciting high notes than many of them. I hope, though, that he will stop trying to make his tone fatter than nature intended. What's there already is more than adequate.
Soprano Barbara Kilduff, whose vocal weight is considerably slighter than Mr Beltran's, appears quite content to sing within her own dynamic parameters. Her voice, which is dry in low and mid-range, jumps into focus above the stave, at which point her considerable coloratura technique comes into its own. It is a voice that is particularly suited to the lighter roles in French romantic opera, and she duly obliged with dazzling accounts of the waltzes of Gounod's Juliet and Offenbach's Olympia as well as a fetching Gavotte from Massenet's Manon.
Nicholas Folwell sounded out-of-sorts, as if he was fighting off a cold. He appeared to have difficulty controlling focus and intonation, even in two relatively singer-proof
Stephen Adams ballads. He sounded best when singing in duets, particularly with Ms Kilduff in the father/daughter scene from Act 1 of Rigoletto. Cantairi Avondale, who backed some of the solo items, lacked the necessary body of sound and security of intonation for their ambitious programme of choruses from Prince Igor and Aida.