ABS Showcases New Countertenor

Countertenor Kyle Sanchez Tingzon (from his Media Web site)

Yesterday soprano Maya Kherani was obliged, due to illness, to withdraw from performing in the annual end-of-year recital presented by American Bach Soloists (ABS). Fortunately, a last-minute replacement was found to join bass-baritone Christian Pursell and the ABS instrumentalists in Herbst Theatre. That replacement was countertenor Kyle Sanchez Tingzon, who had completed his graduate and postgraduate studies in Vocal Performance, with an emphasis for Historical Performance, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2022. Last year he was a Young Artist performer at the Glimmerglass Festival, where he made his company and role debut as Goffredo in the performance of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 7 opera Rinaldo.

Yesterday afternoon he revisited HWV 7 with a performance of the aria “Cara sposa.” He also sang arias from three other Handel operas: HWV 19 (Rodelinda), HWV 40 (Serse), and HWV 17 (Giulio Cesare). For two of those operas, Rodelinda and Rinaldo, his performances were coupled with bass-baritone arias sung by Pursell. The latter also sang an aria from HWV 29 (Ezio) and an extended scene from HWV 31 (Orlando), as well as the aria “Présent des dieux” from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Castor et Pollux.

In addition, Artistic Director Jeffrey Thomas led the instrumental ensemble in the overture to HWV 19, as well as the overture to Carl Heinrich Graun’s Iphigenia in Aulis. The program concluded with an extended instrumental excerpt from Rameau’s Les Indes galantes. The intermission was followed by the most familiar music on the program, the second movement (Air) of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1068 (third) orchestral suite.

All this made for a thoroughly engaging program. Every now and then Pursell’s earnest delivery would remind me of a “downright, forthright, and upright” (words by Noël Coward) personality. However, baritones often tend to be that way in opera narratives; and that shoe could not have found a better fit in Pursell’s foot. Furthermore, if Pursell’s appearance reflected on Coward’s engaging theatrics, Tingzon’s ABS debut offered its own reflections on A Star is Born!