Lenox — Ventfort Hall Gilded Age Mansion and Museum is, as its name suggests, a place where you can travel back in time to see fascinating artifacts of a bygone era. But you don’t expect to be transported to Saint Petersburg, Soviet Russia, circa 1970.
On Thursday, August 29, however, the Prima Music Foundation, in its last concert of the summer at Ventfort Hall, presented the program “Opera Meets Hollywood,” featuring vocal performances from tenor David Guzman, soprano Alexandra Lushtak, and tenor and Professor of Voice at the Rimsky-Korsakov College at The Saint Petersburg Conservatory Alexander Aleksandrovich Dedik (also known as Александр Дедик). Dedik is well known in Russia as a “dramatic” tenor, which is a good thing, because his is bigger than life, and one cannot imagine him singing any other way. He has sung at opera houses in Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Minsk, and Leningrad. Also, he has been a guest singer at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
It was Mr. Dedik who stole the spotlight in no uncertain terms on Thursday, although tenor David Guzman certainly gave him a run for his money. Both men are capable of producing sound-pressure levels that would fill a large auditorium, and they did so fairly often over the course of a one-hour-plus recital.
Also hailing from the The Saint Petersburg Conservatory, soprano Alexandra Lushtak sang four pieces on the program, the most memorable of which was “Lascia ch’io pianga” from George Frideric Handel’s “Rinaldo.” A soloist with The Saint Petersburg Lege Artis Choir, Lushtak has made several recordings with the group for Sony Classical and has toured with them throughout Europe and the U.S. She has sung title roles in Gluck’s “Orfeo” and Handel’s “Solomon” with the New York Metamorphosis Orchestra, as well as selections from Schumann, Handel, and Mozart.
Tenor David Guzman is an assistant professor of music and voice at Boston University. In his work as an opera singer and recitalist, Guzman specializes in Latin American music, forgotten art songs in particular. Recent appearances include a recital at the Lyceum Mozartiano de La Habana in Cuba, the tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Brown University Orchestra, and a recital of Colombian Andean music with Trio Palos y Cuerdas at Boston University.
Accompanying these singers were two outstanding pianists, Elle Gurevich and Anastasia Dedik.
Elle Gurevich recently won Grand Prize at the Young Pianists Competition of New Jersey. She has performed solo in Merkin Hall and in Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. She is a student at the Special Music High School, majoring in piano, and at the Juilliard School, majoring in composition in the pre-college program. She has performed with the Prima Music Foundation and has participated in the foundation’s Rising Stars Piano Camp held every June at the Berkshire Music School in Pittsfield.
Born and raised in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Anastasia Dedik is Alexander Dedik’s daughter and the Prima Music Foundation’s artistic director. She is also an excellent collaborative pianist, having studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and The Juilliard School. But in truth, she is a virtuoso concert pianist, having performed at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Great Philharmonic Hall in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She has appeared as a soloist with the Fort Worth Symphony, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, NYCA Symphony Orchestra, San Jose Symphony, and Oberlin Orchestra. She has won many international piano competitions, including the “Bösendorfer and Yamaha USASU” International Piano Competition, San Jose International Piano Competition, and Pietro Argento International Piano Competition.
The program on Thursday consisted of works by Bizet, Bernstein, Handel, Puccini, Verdi, Gershwin, Gounod, and several others.
It was truly a night at the opera at Ventfort Hall, and not only because of the repertory. It was the powerful singing that did all the heavy lifting, with all three singers joining together on the spectacular grand finale, “Li biamo” from Verdi’s “La Traviata.”
