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Sumi Jo Crosses Over By Philip Anson / February 6, 2001 Carnegie Hall Feb. 6, 2001 Korean soprano Sumi Jo is the latest classical singer to take a walk on the wild side of the Great White Way. Her Feb. 6 Carnegie Hall concert was half devoted to Broadway songs from her new Erato CD, Only Love, which has already sold 700,000 copies, according to her record company. The Korean community, including the Ambassador to the United Nations and the Consul General, were out in force to applaud the woman who is, my neighbours assured me, “the number one singer in Korea.” Not every classical singer can juggle the sacred and profane in one concert. Bryn Terfel can, Renée Fleming sometimes can. Sumi Jo made an honorable attempt that was quite successful. The main problem was Jo’s nervousness in broaching a new repertoire for the first time to her devoted public (the concert’s presenter told the audience as much during introductory remarks). Nerves might have been the cause of her restraint in the classical half of the program, before the intermission. I have heard Sumi Jo sing this repertoire in smaller halls, before specialized classical music audiences, where she has proven herself a golden age singer. Here in Carnegie Hall she was almost, but not quite, at her best. Jo opened with two Vivaldi coloratura showpieces, “Agitata da due venti” from Griselda and “Sposa, son disprezzata” from Bajazet. She dispatched the devilishly tricky runs and divisions with her usual efficiency, but she sang at modest volume and seemed to be conserving her voice. She worked her way back up to full power with a lovely “Caro nome” from Verdi’s Rigoletto, and “Una voce poco fa” from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Unfortunately Gilda’s trills were accompanied by ringing cell phones. Anyone near the back of the hall had to endure the hired photographer’s loud camera clicking. It is high time concert halls implement new policies: photographers must use digital cameras, and cell phones must be checked at the door. After the intermission came the pop music. Jo warmed up with “Someone Like You” and “Once upon a Dream” from Jekyll and Hyde. She was a bit tense, but her diction was clear and she had a good style. Yet when she started singing out in “Losing My Mind” from Follies, the microphone sometimes uncomfortably amplified her already big voice. She was joined by dashing young Korean baritone Jung-Hack Seo in Lloyd Webber’s “All I Ask of You” from Phantom and Bernstein’s “Tonight.” They made a nice couple, though Seo tended to go overboard, his impressively loud and rich voice having been trained for singing unmiked in the biggest opera houses. His solo renditions of “I got plenty o’ nuttin” from Porgy and Bess, and “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof, were earnest, if not idiomatic. Sumi Jo concluded the concert with Bernstein’s “Glitter and Be Gay” and encores including a schmaltzy arrangement of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, “I Could Have Danced All Night”, and a famous Korean folk song dedicated to peace between North and South Korea, which got a round of applause. Korean-Canadian composer Claude Chen conducted “Its Time to Forget”, a sentimental Korean pop ballad he had written for her. > Carnegie Hall website
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