It’s not as if Chinese-born, Swedish-trained tenor Yinjia Gong can’t sing; it’s just that judging from this recital, a good manager or agent should have kept him from recording a debut disc with such an unfinished technique and persona. The exposure he’s given here, in 15 very familiar arias (there are three unnecessary orchestral interludes: the prelude to Act 1 of Traviata; the Intermezzos from Carmen Suite No. 1 and from the third act of Manon Lescaut, in no particular order), with the voice recorded very closely, is almost unfair and unkind.
We get an essentially lyric voice, suited for Tonio in Fille, which he dispatches as if only the nine high Cs mattered; Nemorino, whose “Una furtiva…” is spoiled by a mess of a cadenza at the end; and “La donna e mobile” with another slovenly cadenza and a bleated high B-natural. He adds nothing to the buckets of recordings of Cavaradossi’s two arias (separated here by 13 other tracks) or “Celeste Aida”.
“Ah, lève-toi soleil” ends with a nice piano top high note, but the same note is delivered flat earlier in the aria. Arias from Werther and Des Grieux (Massenet) go by with so little to distinguish them that I had to play the CD again merely to hear them. Faust’s aria is good enough, as is “Che gelida manina”, but Riccardo’s last-act aria from Ballo is faceless. Adolphe Adam’s “Postillon” aria is hurled at us, big, nasty high D and all, and his statement and restatement of “Qu’il était beau” in this aria keeps coming out as “’Il était boo”.
The tenor claims that Björling and Gedda are his idols. He has none of the finesse of either, doesn’t appear to actually know what he’s singing about, and every so often, when he goes for a Björling-like catch in his voice, it sounds fake. And sorry–but the sound itself, on high and at forte, does not fall well on the ear. Something tells me that in person he’d be more appealing, and the basic material is here, but if he’s not careful he could disappear.
