Charles Petzold

You know a concert might have a few laughs when two guest pianists join Myra Huang on the piano bench to bang out a six-hand rendition of the overture from The Barber of Seville, and Myra Huang gets the giggles even before they begin. About a third of the way through, Myra Huang on the treble end gets up, prances around the bench, and takes a seat on the bass side, the two other pianists sliding to make room. Then the new treble pianist Thomas Lausmann does the same, leaving Bryan Wagorn on the treble side, who during a moment when he has a free right hand, picks up a phone and takes a triple selfie.

The overture got an ovation, of course:

But the main act was yet to come!

The concert last night at the 92nd Street Y was all-Rossini program of arias and duets sung by bel canto tenors Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres with accompanist extraordinare Myra Huang. Brownlee and Spyres have done this thing before, and last year released an all-Rossini album called Amici e Rivali (Friends and Rivals), but that’s nothing like seeing them live. It was obvious that they were having an enormous amount of fun — nearly as much fun as we were having watching them.

Both Brownlee and Spyres specialize in the bel canto repertoire but in quite different ways: Lawrence Brownlee is technically brilliant with a clear high tone that just melts the audience. Michael Spyres identifies as a baritenor, but has a range that exceeds even that, and his stage presence is ideal for comic roles like Figaro.

Following the Barber of Seville overture, Michael Spyres sang Figaro’s famous entrance aria as Seville’s barber and factotum, then Lawrence Brownlee took the stage to sing Count Almaviva’s closing aria to Rosina. Then it was a jump back towards the beginning of the opera for Brownlee and Spyres to sing the long duet in which the Count offers Figaro metal coins to help him win the hand of Rosina.

The concert then explored some lesser-known Rossini, including a song “L’esule” ("The Exile") sung by Spyres, a duet between Leicester (Spyres) and Norfolk (Brownlee) from Rossini’s Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra (Elizabeth, Queen of England) and another duet from Ricciardo e Zoraide.

Then another overture: Myra Huang’s own piano transcription (for just two hands) of the famous overture from William Tell, flashing a smile to the audience at the “Call to the Cows” section often used in cartoons to accompany a sunrise. Myra Huang is such a frequent and beloved accompanist — in the post-lockdown era alone, I’ve seen her on May 11 and October 10 — that it’s great to see her doing something solo!

The concert concluded with arias and a duet from Rossini’s odd Otello, which is much less known and performed than Verdi’s version. All three of the leading men in Rossini’s version are tenors, so presumably there was some flexibility, but Lawrence Brownlee sang the flashier music of Rodrigo (a minor character in both Shakespeare and Verdi) and Michael Spyres took the role of Othello.

Here are Lawrence Brownlee, Myra Huang, and Michael Spyres enjoying our enjoyment of them: