ANA VIEIRA LEITE & PEDRO LOPES
by Nicolás Isasi
A beautiful winter afternoon took place during the concert season of the Portuguese Television Network Antena 2. The young duo formed by Ana Vieira Leite (soprano) and Pedro Lopes (piano) presented a recital called Ín.Ti.Mo at the Auditorio do Museu do Oriente in Lisbon. Beginning the program was Sweeter than roses and I attempt from love’s sickness by Henry Purcell with arrangement of Benjamin Britten. The mysterious voice of Vieira Leite began to emerge in a subtle way in the lovely auditorium. The melody, in the middle of the piece, begins to have a classicist feel with charming coloraturas. The audience was very warm, although each time they applauded it was with a certain fear, so as not to disturb the live and direct presenter, who off stage introduced each piece for the television audience.
Ana Vieira Leite began her musical studies at the Calouste Gulbenkian Music Conservatory in Braga, at the age of 6. She has a degree in singing and a master’s degree in artistic interpretation from ESMAE (Porto). In 2018 she won 1st prize in the Almada International Competition and received the Ville de Genève prize for her outstanding work at the Haute École de Musique de Genève. Her debut in the role of Händel’s Partenope with Les Artsflorissants in 2021 marked the beginning of her career. Since then, she has established herself as one of the leading young singers in the field of baroque music, performing at the Opéra Comique and the Opéra Bastille Paris, the Lucerne Festival, the Ludwigsburg Festival, the Palau de Les Arts Reina Sofía or the Teatro Real.
The following pieces were two mother songs (op.69) by Amy Beach, titled Baby and Hush, baby dear which showed a tender voice, and an accurate pianist who at the end seemed to be a glass musical box, with a pianissimo on a long-sustained note faded into nothingness. The applause gave way to three pieces of a different nature with a more passionate tempo: Love’s Philosophy, Now sleeps the crimson petal and Fill a glass with golden wine with a powerful ending from the Three songs (Op.3) by Roger Quilter. A streetcar named Desire by André Previn was one of the rarest pieces of the program that has something of a Bernstein-style musical. In the middle of the concert, Vieira Leite left the stage to leave Lopes a solo piece, Mélancolie by Francis Poulenc, which was performed with magnificent spirit and exquisite virtuosity. Pedro Lopes studied at the Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espectáculo do Porto, in the class of Pedro Burmester. He has won several awards in Portuguese competitions as the Rotary Portuguese Foundation or the Helena Sá e Costa award. In 2019, with Ensemble Cupertinos, he was awarded the Gramophone Prize in the early music category with the album Cardoso, dedicated to Portuguese composers from renaissance.
Vieira Leite walked back on stage slowly moving to the piano and they performed the pieces Trois melodies (Les berceaux, Notre amour and Le secret) by Gabriel Fauré, and Si vous n’avez rien à me dire by Camille Saint-Saëns. It was a funny contrast to the previous two songs of Hahn and Poulenc, when Lopes began to accompany throughout Messager’s rhythmic passages, in a relaxed and crazy way as the number J’ai deux amants requires. The piece depicts a woman who laughs at the ridicule bestowed upon her two lovers at the musical L’amour masqué.
At the end, the encore was Now that the sun by Henry Purcell (also with arrangement of Britten). Her voice has a good flexibility to fill the Museu do Oriente Auditorium, and another aspect of her performance throughout is the fantastic diction, very clear to the listener in each language. On this season, she will debut as Créuse in Charpentier’s Medée at the Opéra National de Paris, Linda in Händel’s Ariodante at the Philharmonic de Paris, and Händel’s Messiah at the Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne. This recital was proof the fresh ability of new Portuguese artists in an intimate TV concert.
H&C contributor: Nicolás Isasi nasceu em La Plata, Argentina. Começou a estudar saxofone aos 10 anos. É Diretor de Cinema (FUC) e Opera Regié (Teatro Colón). Escreveu mais de 500 críticas de arte, publicadas em diversos livros, revistas e jornais nacionais e internacionais.
