The ambience of the old opera houses of renaissance Europe was recreated at the Sathya Sai Sanskruta Sadanam on Tuesday (July 31) when Soprano Nicola Beller Carbone rendered her full-throated lieder and arias at a concert labelled Ganjam Sensations.

She was accompanied by Stefan Blunier on the piano. Both the singing and the accompanying music was rendered completely unamplified (or unplugged to use a contemporary term) in true classic opera style to an ecstatic audience of about 500.

The who’s who of Bangalore were present including theatre personalities Arjun Sajnani and Ajit Saldanha, former Miss India and entrepreneur Rekha Hande, Bangalore School of Music’s founder Aruna Sunderlal, Symphonia’s Choir director Gladys Mohanraj and Love Travel Guide’s founder Fiona Caulfield.

The audience also represented people from various nationalities showing the cosmopolitan aspect of Bangalore. The concert itself was designed for a cosmopolitan audience with a selection of songs sung in Italian, German, Spanish and French.

The concert was in two parts - the first part comprising of lieder and the second arias. Lieder is a German word meaning ‘songs.’  In English the term is used for European classical music songs, also known as art songs.

The concert the term is best used to describe specifically songs set to a German poem of reasonably high literary aspirations, most notably during the nineteenth century, beginning with Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf. Typically, lieder are arranged for a single singer and piano, as in the case of this concert.

Sometimes lieder are gathered in a liederkreis or song cycle - a series of songs tied by a single narrative or theme. This aspect of lieder was illustrated by Nicola in the dramatic rendering (in German) of Robert Schumann’s, Poems of Mary, Queen of Scots, a cycle of songs comprising Farewell to France, After the birth of her son, To Queen Elizabeth, Farewell to the world and Prayer.

Nicola rendered a cycle of songs by Enrique Granados - Tonadillas (Fernando Periquet) comprising the songs Love and hate, The Maja’s gaze, The discreet lover, The timid young man and The tralala and the strum. A second cycle of Enrique Granados songs had a poignant rendering of The painful maja 1 to 3 after the rendering of Federic Mompou’s Pastoral and Only the flowers.

The second part of the concert comprised of eight arias from well-known operas. Aria was originally any expressive melody usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with accompaniment.

Perhaps the most common context for arias is opera, although there are many arias that form movement of oratorios and cantatas. Composers also wrote concert arias, which are not part of any larger work.

Four of the eight songs were selected from operas of Giacomo Puccini - O dear daddy (from Il trittico), Madame butterfly, I lived for my art (Tosca), Sister Angelica (Il trittico). The other aria selected for this exclusive concert included W Gluck’s Of my sweet ardor (Paris and Helen), Mozart’s O Love (from the comic opera The marriage of Figaro), Giuseppe Verdi’s Peace, peace (Italian opera The Force of Destiny) and G Bizet’s Love is a rebellious bird (Carmen).

Soprano Nicola rendered the arias bringing out the subtle nuances and emotions embedded in the songs demonstrating her virtuoso vocal skills in a classic concert which could be termed as a first of its kind.