While he could certainly caress a melting phrase, and spin a seamless legato, he was also capable of considerable, gleaming firepower. Left-Right Kangmin Justin Kim (Song Liling), Mark Stone (René Gallimard), photo by Curtis Brown for the Santa Fe Opera His poised singing of a bit of Puccini’s Un bel di compared favorably to accomplished female sopranos. Kim commands a wide-ranging instrument of great expressive capabilities. Not so today, as evidenced by an increasingly accomplished roster of these specialized male singers. In my distant youth, countertenors were rarities, oddities even, and their sound was flutey, hooty, and chaste.
His voice has an alluring sheen and distinctive personality. Kim is utterly believable as the Chinese opera performer Song Liling, his grace and lithe, deferential movement alternately seductive and assertive. The plot communicates the unlikely true story of a French diplomat who becomes sexually fascinated by a soprano he enjoyed performing Madama Butterfly, who not only turns out to be a male, but an enemy spy at that. Countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim is electrifying in the title role, his raw, fearless, acting balanced by some of the most sublime, emotionally invested, beautifully colored vocalizing of the season. The rejoicing is especially warranted by two towering, Big Sing performances from the plot’s leading adversaries.
It is cause for celebration that Santa Fe Opera’s prestigious annual festival presented its 18 th world premiere with composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang’s intriguing East-West fantasy, M.
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