Tenor Joseph CallejaThe Associated Press
Joseph Calleja At Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto on Friday
The name "Joseph Calleja" wasn't enough to draw a big audience to Roy Thomson Hall on Friday night. But if the Maltese singer's reputation filled only two-thirds of the hall, his performance did the rest - enveloping the whole auditorium with his tenor voice.
Calleja is not unknown to Toronto audiences. He made his Canadian Opera Company debut as Rodolfo in La Boheme a decade ago, at the tender age of 22. Since then, he's appeared in the world's leading opera houses - including New York, London and Vienna - singing mostly Italian repertoire.
Calleja is a tall, robust-looking fellow, who seemed comfortable and happy to be singing in the cavernous Roy Thomson Hall. However, he frequently left the stage between selections: this, he explained, was for sips of water, as he'd just spent the day breathing the dry air of a trans-Atlantic flight.
It came as no surprise that his program consisted largely of Italian songs and arias, with a smattering of French selections thrown into the mix. And if the recital was on the slender side, he made up for it with no less than four encores
Efficiently supported by Canadian pianist John Hess, Calleja opened with two bits of Verdi: Questa o quella from Rigloletto, and O figli - Ah, la paterna mano from MacBeth. And with these two arias he established his credentials as a forceful singer whose singing is not forced, and whose "money notes" are always on the money. His is not the smoothest of voices - there were audible breaks between his registers - but he has a bright, virile sound, with just a touch of vibrato for warmth.
Add to that a strong sense of style, and the evening only got better. A pair of obscure Italian songs - A Vucchella and Vaghissimma sembianza by Paulo Tosti and Stefano Donaudy, respectively - were endowed by Calleja with a graceful Neapolitan lilt. And Verdi's Sento avvampar nell'anima gave him the opportunity to sink his teeth into something more dramatically challenging, with abrupt changes in dynamics and mood.
Indeed, Calleja has a knack for getting inside the characters he portrays. For instance, he made a subtle yet effective shift from the easygoing Mario Cavaradossi who inhabits Act I of Puccini's Tosca to the doomed Cavaradossi of Act III. Impressively, he began Cavaradossi's final aria E lucevan le stelle, with arresting softness, and gradually built up a powerful crescendo.
Yet another virtue was Calleja's no-nonsense approach to the notes on the page. He sang his repertoire straight, most of the time - and whenever he did something a just tad fancy, like his ornament on the final note of Io conosco un giardino from Giuseppe Pietri's Maristella, or a momentary ritardando in Leoncavallo's song Mattinata, the effect was arrestingly charming.
It was only when he switched to French repertoire, at the end of his recital, that Calleja managed to sound less than entirely convincing. His vocal technique remained secure, in both L'Amour - Ah, leve-toi Soleil (from Gounod's Romeo et Juliette and Ah, tout est bien fini (from Massenet's Le Cid, but his pronunciation was slightly off the mark. And in his only attempt at an English song - Because God Made You Mine by Guy D'Hardelot, sung as an encore - his vowels were more Italian than English.
Is it correct to describe Calleja as an Italian tenor? Strictly speaking, the 32-year-old from Malta isn't Italian. But as he clearly demonstrated on Friday night, if he's not an Italian tenor, he'll do just fine till one comes along.
Special to The Globe and Mail.