Performance Review: Recital, Kansas City, 2007

"Opera singers too often give recitals that avoid the very repertoire that made them famous. Mariusz Kwiecien's Harriman-Jewell Series program on Sunday was a refreshing departure. It struck an ideal balance between songs and stage excerpts, thus showing off the full range of this Metropolitan Opera baritone du jour's extraordinary abilities.

Kwiecien (KVEEAY-chain) is the whole package, and it's easy to see why he makes opera fans swoon, particularly those of feminine gender. He possesses an exceptionally natural voice, full of burnished bronze and honed to excellent sheen. He can taper a note from forte to pianissimo without the slightest waver in pitch or tone color. Beyond that, he moved with debonair grace, cast a seductive eye about when necessary and sometimes used a finger to "conduct" his pianist's postludes. (His pianist was the excellent Howard Watkins, who oozed musicality from every pore.) Moreover, in keeping with the Samuel Ramey tradition, he didn't mind showing some chest hair, with a shirt that ran out of buttons halfway up.

But the Polish-born Kwiecien is a serious artist, not a slab of beef. His voice has a more human, conversational quality than that of his Slavic rival at the Met, baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. This was especially apparent in the Tchaikovsky songs, including the warhorse English-speakers know as "None But the Lonely Heart," which sounded surprisingly personal and unhackneyed. In "Don Juan's Serenade," we saw more of the playful than the rapacious Don.

Kwiecien also showed a special tenderness in Onegin's Act 1 aria from "Eugene Onegin," which was sweeter and more sympathetic than Hvorostovsky's more aloof approach. It is not a huge voice, a lyric baritone really, but it has plenty of power when needed. [...]

He sang in five languages, including a set of atmospheric Romantic songs in Polish by Mieczyslaw Karlowicz, with whose dark sentiments he had an obvious emotional affinity. Baritones tend to have long careers, and Kwiecien, 34, has trained well for the long haul. We'll probably be seeing him around for many years to come."

Paul Horsley, "Voice of bronze",
Kansas City Star, October 30, 2007