Star Aussie soprano Siobhan Stagg makes stunning homecoming

Top Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg made one of her welcome trips home for an intimate concert at Sydney Opera House.

Siobhan Stagg and Nico de Villiers performing in the Utzon Room at Sydney Opera House. Picture: Cassandra Hannagan

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The great German mezzo Christa Ludwig once said Mildura-born Siobhan Stagg has “one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard”, and one woman in the audience couldn’t help but echo that sentiment when the soprano gave a recital with South African pianist Nico de Villiers in the latest of the Utzon Music series at Sydney Opera House.

In this small room with its intimate acoustic the audience was able to revel in Stagg’s glorious rich and creamy tone and finely honed acting talents as the duo unearthed some gemlike songs by “unjustly forgotten” post-Romantic Dutch-American composer and conductor Richard Hageman, contrasting them with works by his contemporaries Richard Strauss and Henri Duparc.

After moving to the US in 1906 Hageman enjoyed a varied career as a pianist, conductor and composer, even appearing in some of John Ford’s films as an actor in the 1930s and 40s – he wrote the soundtracks for several his movies, picking up an Oscar for his score for Stagecoach.

He was also a conductor and pianist for the New York Metropolitan Opera for many years as well as conducting the famous Hollywood Bowl concerts during the war years.

De Villiers, on his first visit to Australia, as well as being a fine pianist is also an academic and he has made a study of Hageman and demonstrated how he borrowed from musical or textual phrases from the two better known composers and made them his own.

His songs in English, French and German explore nature, the landscape of memory and the power of love, drawing on a wide range of settings, including poems by Hilaire Belloc, Rabrindranath Tagore and Edward Lear. With 22 songs on the program – 23 if you include the encore – Stagg was able to show the full range of her remarkable talents.

Based mainly in Europe, where she has carved out a triumphant career over the past decade, her homecomings are always eagerly anticipated and this recital lived up to expectation.

De Villiers, a sensitive and nuanced accompanist, also proved to be a genial and informative host, pointing out the various links between Hageman’s musical ideas and those of Strauss and Duparc. He showed how in Bettlerliebe, for example, the American inverted the famous opening chord sequence of Strauss’s exquisite song Morgen.

A standout of the afternoon were four of Hageman’s settings of verses from Tagore’s The Gardener and the joyful powerful climax of one of his most popular songs, Is It You? with its ringing high notes. The only thing that could top that was a charming setting of Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat, which showed off Stagg’s comedic chops.

Stagg and de Villiers have released an album of 25 of Hageman’s songs, Voices, and to hear her voice in all its glory take a listen to her new album Debussy & Strauss recorded with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Both are available on streaming platforms near you.

DETAILS

• CONCERT Siobhan Stagg & Nico de Villiers

• WHERE Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House

• WHEN JULY 26, 2024