Rosenblatt Recitals present tenor Joel Prieto at Wigmore Hall

Tenor Joel Prieto’s operatic career started in 2004 in Puerto Rico. Since then he has appeared in many of the world’s most famous opera houses. He made his Royal Opera House debut in May this year as Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff. This Monday evening, he graced the stage of Rosenblatt Recitals for a two-hour long performance, recorded for and broadcast by Sky Arts, and accompanied by pianist Iain Burnside.

Prieto, who had already performed at Rosenblatt Recitals in 2010 with soprano Sara Hershkowitz, presented a two-part programme ranging from Mozart’s arias “Or che il dover… Tali e contanti sono”, “Ridente la calma” and his longest ever composed lied “Abendempfindung”, through Beethoven’s only song cycle An die Ferne Geliebte, to works of major Puerto Rican composers.

Dedicating the second part of his programme to his parents, this highly talented Spanish-born singer, who completed his studies at the Manhattan School of Music in New York (and has won major prizes such as the Zarzuela Prize and the Cultur Arte Prize), is a unique performer, rapidly transforming not only the stage but the whole of Wigmore Hall into an ardent sanctuary of richness.

Prieto’s firm and dramatically warm voice, which reaches incredible highs of beauty and magnificence, has that perfectly balanced blend of inner ardor and great musical heritage’s mighty brightness. A truly enriching night of majesty and cultural satisfaction even for the hardest to please.

 Verdict: ••••

 Eleonora Ricotta 

 For further information on Joel Prieto, visit his website here

 For further information on Rosenblatt Recitals, click here