October 2004
Beeld Plus 

Veenemans vocally sparkles on her brilliant Operetta CD 

Thys Odendaal 

The operetta is a highly specialised art form. It is a genre with its roots in Austria, more specific in the music city of Vienna, and is in its light heartedness and Schmaltz a mirror image of an era at the end of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th Century – a social setting of elegance and sophistication. 

Similar music genres also developed elsewhere – the Zarzuela in Spain and the Musical in the USA – and it demands a specific approach to present it with style within the genre. Occasionally singers underestimate the operetta to their own detriment. The sometimes-uninteresting characters and small storylines do not imply that the music is less demanding. Most sopranos have been challenged by the Czardas in Strauss’s Fledermaus.  

The soprano Michelle Veenemans’s CD, Schenkt man sich Rosen, is a more than welcome contribution to the South African CD catalogue. She has an instinctive feeling for the genre. Operetta music apparently flows in her Veenemans veins – Michelle being a descendent of two former brilliant operetta exponents, also both sopranos – mother Barbara and aunt Leonore … 

Michelle firstly has the vocal ability and feeling to let an operetta aria live – aria for sure, which means that one would love to hear her in a complete operetta. Her coloratura is agile and sometimes risky, but suits the contents of the arias. 

An important component of her interpretations is the capable way in which she handles the rhythmic aspect – the ritardandos and extension of phrases that give the melody the “swing” in a waltz or polka. 

She deserves a bunch of red roses!

(Newspaper review: Translation from Afrikaans to English)