Thibault Noally / Recenze

The emotion was palpable on this Thursday evening Salle Gaveau for what, for many people, was the first concert of the “post-Covid”… It was Bruno de Sá who had the honor to reopen the festivities, with a recital he gave accompanied by Les Accents ensemble by Thibault Noally. The program, entitled Rome 1700, featured orchestral and vocal pages (operatic arias and sacred music) by Handel, Scarlatti, Caldara and Lanciani. In just six years (the ensemble was created in 2016), Les Accents has acquired great visibility on the Baroque music scene. Under the leadership of their conductor, the violinist Thibault Noally , they demonstrated their usual qualities: constant musicality, precision of the attacks, the musicians' great ability to vary colors, to respond to each other (superb successive entry of the instruments into the Quartetto in D minor Scarlatti), and engage with the singer (Bravo William spoon whose oboe was repeatedly called to "sing" Bruno Sá). A Bruno de Sá who was the great winner of the evening! The career of this young Brazilian soprano countertenor is booming: this was his first French recital, before his concert in Montpellier with Philippe Jaroussky ( Scarlatti's Primo Omicidio , given on May 25 at the Corum), then a first disc which will be released by Warner this fall. The naturally high hook of his voice makes the singer evolve without any difficulty in the soprano register, up to and including in the highest notes. If we add to this a great mastery of the breath, a beautiful attention given to nuances and above all a technique which allows him to overcome the craziest virtuosity (the Amenfinals of Handel's Gloria are taken at a hellish pace!), we will understand the great success achieved by the singer with a conquered audience. Do we dare to disturb the general enthusiasm for one or two (small) downsides? We sometimes hear, here and there, tiny problems of accuracy when the singer changes register (especially when he goes from high to low), and above all, the voice, beautiful as it is, would benefit from being more richly, more variously colored: whether it is a question of singing the glory of God, of imploring his pity, of singing of love, of expressing anger, the colors always remain more or less the same; and if we feel (a little) the fury that (should) ignite (r) the air of Martirio di Sant'Eustacchioof Lanciani, we perhaps owe it more, in the end, to the rolling eyes, mimicry and movements of the shoulders alla Bartoli than to a real authority in the accent and in the projection, or to the solicitation of suitable vocal colors - which should be dark and rough here… Minimal reproaches for a singer who is at the dawn of his career and who will have, no doubt, all the time to refine the characterization of the characters he will have to interpret .