Golden

Review – Vienna, The Window To Modernity (The Barbican, Sunday 9 December 2012)

Renée Fleming (Soprano)
Maciej Pikulski (Piano)

Wolf – Goethe Lieder
Mahler – Rückert Lieder
Schoenberg – Ewartung Op. 2 No.1; Jane Grey, Op. 12 No. 1
Zemlinsky – Fünf lieder auf Texte von Richard Dehmel
Korngold – Selected lieder & Walzer aus Wien, Frag mich aft

Richard Strauss – Zueignung
Delibes – Les filles de Cadix
Korngold – Marietta’s lied

Concentrating on the period between 1888 and 1933, Renée Fleming’s recital underlined how the tectonic plates of harmony and structure that had underpinned music for literally centuries were slowly disintegrating.

The first half was devoted to the music of Wolf and Mahler and I quite fancied that her outfit, with its muted tartan pattern was reminiscent in some way of the final years of that century.

Ms Fleming is an accomplished recitalist and all-round performer. She draws the listener in not only with the beauty of her voice but also with the depth of her interpretation.

However at the Barbican it took longer than expected. Despite professing to a cold there was no drop in the quality or intensity of her singing, rather – I feel – it was her choice of opening lieder.

I am not convinced that her voice is suited to Wolf’s Goethe lieder. Without a doubt they were performed well – technically to say the least – but the never felt fully invested in. I did wonder, in fact, had she performed his Mörike Lieder would they, with their dark toned hues, been more successful as Anakreons Grab – with its Mörike leanings – was the most successful of the quintet.

However she was definitely on top form for Mahler’s Rückert Lieder. I hope that at some point soon Ms Fleming captures these songs on disc. Her voice, as I have mentioned before, has developed a richer, more burnished hue, combined with her continued ability to spin the most liquid vocal line, that are so important for these songs. The opening song, with its almost limpid line, Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft! floated out across the audience, beautifully accompanied by Pikulski. Similarly the control she displayed in Liebst do um Schönheit, modulating her voice through the dynamics, was breathtaking. Um Mitternacht showed off Ms Fleming’s polished lower range as she carefully placed each and every word of the text and in sharp relief to the sparkling, almost deliberately brittle jauntiness of Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder.

But the preceding four songs were but a warm up. Ich bin der Welt adhanden gekommen was a coup in terms of a performance that had everything in terms of the highest level musicianship, interpretation and mesmerising singing. A song of resignation, never have the final two lines sounded so beautifully poignant.

A recording please.

Ms Fleming returned for the second half and delivered a theatrical coup even before she began to sing. Wrapped head to toe in shimmering gold – a quality and colour that could easily be used to describe her own voice – she was a literal embodiment of a Gustav Klimt character. And her reference to the artist was not lost on the audience.

Indeed, was Ms Fleming’s greater engagement with the audience in the second half a realisation that perhaps she had not enraptured them sufficiently before the interval? If so, it was a masterstroke. I recently read in an interview with Opera News how Susan Graham also talks to her audience. I think it’s a great advantage to engage the audience in a lieder recital and I see that Mesdames Graham and Fleming are “recitaling” together which should make for a chatty evening.

The composers of the second half – Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Korngold – inhabited a Vienna on the edge of the tonality and Ms Fleming delivered the selection from each composer not only with great poise but again an underlying technical precision and burnished tone that was remarkable.

Indeed it is her touchstone relationship with the lieder of Richard Strauss that informed the brilliance of her performances.

The rarely performed Jane Grey by Schoenberg for example was imbued with great drama. It was almost as if Ms Fleming could see the execution of this hapless young girl before her very eyes.

Similarly she captured the symbolism of Dehmel’s verse and the music it inspired from Zemlinsky beautifully. The abrupt ending of Auf see never ceases to catch my breath.

While it was clear that Korngold’s Was die mir bist? – written for his mother – was the clear favourite for Ms Fleming, personally it was Sterbelied which was my favourite in this final selection. Again, Ms Fleming has over the years become more than adept at colouring individual words that is so perfectly suited to the lieder of this period.

The recital proper ended with Walzer am Wien by Korngold – a fitting glittering, skittering end piece to a brilliant recital.

However, no Fleming recital would be complete with a selection of encores that didn’t include Richard Strauss. At the Barbican she gave us a beautifully rendered, impassioned Zueignung. This was followed – by her own admission – with a piece she had never performed before, Delibes’ Les filles de Cadix. Despite a humorous fluff halfway through it more than demonstrated that Ms Fleming can do vocal fizz with the best of them.

But she ended the evening with a masterful performance of Marietta’s lied. Again her voice has developed a richer, bronzed toned that now makes her performance of this simply magical.

Throughout the recital she was intuitively and sensitively accompanied by Maciej Pikulski. He matched every single mood she sought to convey with elegant and intelligent playing.

I hope it is a recital relationship that continues.

So, all in all a successful evening. Despite a somewhat cool start, Ms Fleming delivered an exceptional evening of lieder that are clearly close to her own heart that resulted in a well-deserved ovation.

An evening as vocally golden as her gown.

Brava.

Viva La Regina DiDonato

Drama Queens – Joyce DiDonato (Il Complesso Barocco & Alan Curtis)

Album of the year.

There I said it.

Joyce DiDonato’s new album, Drama Queens is – in terms of its high standards of musicianship, exuberant performance and clear passion to perform previously unperformed and undiscovered arias – quite simply the most enjoyable and extraordinary album released this year.

Superlatives over. For now.

It must be a remarkable feeling not only to find – in my romantic mind’s eye – among stacks of dusty manuscripts in the corners of remote libraries arias by unknown composers but then also to perform them.

It’s clearly a trend. Recently Ms Kermes performed arias by composers such as de Mayo and Porpora who are – to a greater extent than before – known to the audience. But on her new recital disc Ms DiDonato delves deeper to bring to life the music of composers who have effectively been forgotten for centuries.

Giuseppe Maria Orlandini. Giovanni Porta. Geminiano Giacomelli. And to a lesser extent Reinhard Keiser. Names much forgotten until now.

And their juxtaposition with the likes of Handel, Hasse, Gluck and Haydn reveals something more startling – that the common perception that they simply ‘weren’t very good’ is not necessarily true. I am not saying that the quality of their music consistently reached the standard of the aforementioned but neither can I believe that these individual arias are simply creative flukes.

And granted it takes a singer of the calibre of Ms DiDonato supported by the excellent Il Complesso Barocco under Alan Curtis to make this music, quite literally, sing.

There is not a weak link in the recital either in terms of the arias chosen or the performances. Yet personally some of the arias stand out more than others.

The opening aria, Da torbida procella from Giuseppe Maria Orlandini’s Berenice, with its overtones of Vivaldi and balance of declamatory phrases and florid passages is a fitting opening track to the recital and Ms DiDonato sets a standard that keeps on rising. The second aria taken from Berenice is another vocal tour de force, the incredibly florid vocal writing holding absolutely no terrors for the singer.

Keiser is possibly the most exciting composer on the disc. Fredegunda’s Lasciami piangere is simply haunting and it is the sonority of the orchestral writing as well as the poignancy of the in-built pauses which are, in some ways, as surprising as Ms DiDonato’s heartfelt delivering of the lilting vocal line. Similarly, the deceptively simple Geloso, sospetto from his opera Octavia with its multiple bassoon obbligato is a real gem.

More Keiser please.

Geminiano Giacomelli’s Merope reveals Sposa, son disprezzata. Again its almost Vivaldian shading and orchestral writing support a vocal line spun out above, and in the da capo Ms Donato finds just the right balance of ornamentation to create an greater emotional impact.

Ms Donato also delves right back to Monteverdi and Cesti with style and expertise, modulating the richness of her voice to this earlier music and finding the right colours to bring this music to life. And all with perfect clarity of diction, a trademark of the entire disc in fact.

Ms Donato also includes selections from Handel Hasse. They are beautiful sung with panache but – and perhaps – because they are better known, they do not grab me in the same way as the other arias. But they do serve a purpose, as I have already said, to demonstrate that the other composers on this disc deserve a better place.

The last two selections on the disc are by Haydn and Gluck respectively but drawn from their operas based on the story of Armida. I remember first hearing Vedi, se t’amo … Odio, furor, dispetto on the Dorati set with Jessye Norman and beginning a life-long love of Haydn’s operas. Here Ms Donato delivers an impassioned performance, breathless and fiery in equal measure. The flip side of the emotional coin is Gluck’s Ah! Si la liberte me doit etre ravie sung with a simplicity that packs quite a punch.

However, it is the Giovanni Porta’s haunting preghiera Madre diletta from Iphigenia in Aulide, the second track on the disc, which steals the show in the entire recital. Ms Donato and the players relentlessly drive this siciliana forward. Again the singer and players finds the perfect balance in the returning da capo in terms of ornamentation – the return of Madre, spun out is breathtaking. I cannot believe there was a dry eye in the house when this aria was first performed. It has become a favourite.

Ms Donato is in London in the New Year as part of her tour to promote this album. In reality while I may wax lyrical about the brilliance of this album, don’t take it from me, listen to Joyce DiDonato herself.

Listen. You won’t be disappointed. At all.

This is musical greatness.

Aria For … Tuesday – Vengo … Aspettate … Sesto! (La Clemenza di Tito)

A bit of a cheat as I haven’t been able to listen to any music all day for today’s Aria For … ends my day instead of starting it.

And what better way to end the day than with Mozart’s final burst of genius in already tired genre – opera seria – with one of the greatest singers ever, Dame Janet Baker.

I find something quite ironic that having eschewed the traditional world of courtly patronage, his penultimate opera was for the epitome of aristocratic life – the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia in 1791.

La Clemenza di Tito is more than a swansong to the genre. Mozart had spent his early life writing great opera seria – Mitridate, re di Ponto, Lucio Silla and Idomeneo – but there is a nobility and breadth in the music of Tito that is unsurpassed. And I don’t only mean in terms of the solo arias. Marvellous as they are, Mozart deviated from the norm and wrote more than the normal number of excepted ensemble pieces that are beautifully crafted in their own right.

I remember the very first time I heard this opera. Nothing prepared me for this trio just before the closing scene of Act One. Coming straight after the wonderful Parto, ma tu ben mio with its basset horn obbligato, Mozart doesn’t allow the audience to rest and continues to pile on the drama with Vengo … Aspettate … Sesto!

In this tightly written trio we have it all – panic, indecision, misunderstanding and misplaced joy.

Whoosh! Suddenly the dramatic intensity is raised by more than a few notches.

The manic, agitated string writing, the almost breathless, hesitant vocal phrases of Vitellia who cannot work out whether to run after Sesto or not, hints at the potential for a magnificent aria. But when Vitellia is joined by Publio and Annio the magic is made. The pair of them misinterpreting her indecision as joy that she has been chosen as empress by Tito, in stark contrast to her own emotional turmoil, is a musical tour de force

This is, in my mind, one of those perfect moments in Mozart opera that is hard to beat.

And when the trio is performed by the incredible cast of Dame Janet Baker as Vitellia, Robert Lloyd as Publio and the Annio of Frederica von Stade, conducted by Sir Colin Davis then you have, quite simply, perfection. This recording is, by any comparison, the best out there. A superlative cast is conducted with careful attention to detail in a recording that is well paced yet constantly driven forward, beautiful sung and played and always with an eye on the drama contained in the music.

And this trio is just a warm up for the thrilling closing scene with its perfect ensemble and choral writing and, if you listen carefully, more than a hint of the requiem that Mozart had in his head.

What a way to end the day.

Hamstrung Handel

Handel’s Altos – Music for Countertenor & Castatro (Wigmore Hall, Tuesday 27 November 2012)

Iestyn Davies (Countertenor)
Alexis Kossenko (Recorder, flute)
Jean-Marc Goujon (Recorder)
Neil Brough (Trumpet)

Ensemble Matheus
Jean-Christophe Spinosi (Conductor)

Iestyn Davies opened his residency at Wigmore Hall – A Singularity of Voice after the biography of Alfred Deller – with a concert inspired by selections from oratorios and three arias from Partenope together with instrumental selections from Handel and Telemann.

Iestyn Davies is – personally – one of the leading countertenors performing today. He has a wonderfully rich timbre, even and resonant with a sure-footed technique that cuts through even the most devilish divisions written by Handel. And what was particularly stunning last night was his complete control of dynamics and vocal light and shade in his singing. Marvellous.

So it was disappointing that this inaugural concert took a while to settle down and ultimately didn’t quite gel.

Not through any fault of Mr Davies.

The opening piece, Eternal Source of Light Divine, so ravishingly performed only last week at OAE’s Nightshift, sounded distinctly hesitant and ragged under Spinosi’s direction. Indeed intonation and inconsistent playing seemed to be Ensemble Matheus default position for most of the evening and was clearly a distraction not only sitting in the audience but it seems for Davies himself.

Eternal Light simply failed to shine. Indeed Davies looked almost ‘discomforted’.

The remaining arias in the first half of the concert were delivered with increasing measures of success. Davies was much more secure in Their Land Brought Forth Frogs from Israel in Egypt but again Spinosi’s players played the notes with some rhythmic indistinction and poorly attuned ensemble playing. This was particularly noticeable in the middle section of The Peasant Tastes The Sweets of Life from Joseph and his Brethren with the continuo player had clear intonation problems.

By the fourth aria Davies seems more in control – perhaps a sharp word in the green room between appearances? – and the selections from Jephtha and Semele were much more decisive and alert. The figurative melisma in Up The Dreadful Steep Ascending (Jephtha) were thrown off with great confidence by the countertenor and Despair No More Shall Wound Me from Semele was a suitable tour de force to end the first half.

Spinosi also included the overture and Sinfonia from Handel’s Xerxes in the first half. For some reason – and I don’t buy the programme notes line about “optional at all – there were no oboes present on the stage. This led to a distinct lack of colour, piquancy and weight in the overture. An ill-conceived decision.

The second half opened with the cantata Splenda in Alba when Ensemble Matheus were supplemented with additional flutes but despite a reference in the programme note, still no oboe. Davies sailed through this relatively unknown cantata with ease. His voice was clarion clear and he sang the arias with beautifully poised affection.

The Ensemble then performed a well-executed if bland performance of Telemann’s Concerto in e minor for flute, recorder and strings. At this point Spinosi returned to the stage violin in hand and in a rather affected manner seemed to take an age to tune. Distracting. It’s a wonderful concerto but failed to grip me. I was not a fan of Kossenko’s over-blousy recorder timbre and while both soloists were technically proficient there was a distinct lack of character in their playing. As I said it was a well-executed performance but didn’t seem to delve into the richness of Telemann’s music full as his music is with the baroque Affections. And the gypsy-inspired foot-stamping by the ensemble in the final movement seemed more contrived that the result of infectious and joyous music making.

Davies closed the concert with three arias from Partenope. Again he was slightly let down by his orchestral players. Sento amor was spun out with great delicacy, with Davies demonstrating he most perfect skill in delivering Handel’s wonderful arcing phrases. And his musical intelligence and sensitivity was underlined here – as in other arias of the evening – with beautifully placed ornamentation on the da capo return. But the wonderful Ch’io parta was marred by what can only be described as turgid playing leading the aria to drag and undermining the simplicity of this aria. And again the continuo cellist suffered from intonation problems in the middle section.

Fittingly, if not chronologically correct, Iestyn closed the concert with the firework-laden Furibondo spira il vento. As well relishing the coloratura of this aria, Davies revelled in delivering with bell-like clarity the vocal leaps and bounds. Suitably the audience roared their approval.

The encore was the beguiling, almost Galant-style Un zefiro spirò from Rodelinda. Once again Davies sang in pure, honeyed tone, beautifully spinning out the triplet melismas with great delicacy. Sadly it was ever so slightly undermined by dodgy intonation once again from the continuo cellist although full plaudits to the wonderful harpsichord playing.

So perhaps not a completely auspicious start to this innovative residency but again not due to any lack of musical brilliance on the part of Iestyn Davies. Without a doubt he was vocally and musically on top form but his performance was undermined – if not marred – by Spinosi and Ensemble Matheus.

Having most recently enjoyed his Arias for Guadagni with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo, I only regret that they weren’t the ensemble on stage with this amazingly talented countertenor at Wigmore Hall.

Aria for … Saturday – Ecco l’orrido campo (Un Ballo in maschera)

Whatever happened to Susan Dunn? A soprano in the spinto tradition I have two discs of her singing. The first, from which this aria comes, is a disc of Wagner and Verdi together with Beethoven’s Ah, Perfido! conducted by Riccardo Chailly. The second is the First Act only – sadly as it is a brilliant recording – of Die Walküre in the role of Sieglinde with Klaus König and Peter Meven conducted by Maazel who surprisingly is an intuitive Wagnerian.

Ms Dunn has both formidable technique and a formidable instrument. Her voice is bright and evenly controlled throughout its range. What’s more she has a thrilling burr – almost a growl in fact – at the lower end of her register that she uses with telling effect. And all this is coupled with strong diction.

In this particular aria from Un Ballo in maschera – as well as throughout the recital CD – she deploys all these skills and her innate musicianship to amazing effect. This can be a cruel aria to perform and on more than one occasion I have seen a soprano catch themselves by failing to navigate it with due care as in parts the vocal line is cruelly exposed. This isn’t the case with Ms Dunn. Not only does she ride effortlessly above the orchestra switching when required to a most dramatic effective mezze voce with incredible ease, but she sings each note with due diligence with intense care given to phrasing and the overall arc of the vocal line with masterfully dynamic shading.

And as ever while it’s impossible in excerpts to generate real dramatic tension, Chailly leads the orchestra with due attention to detail, driving the music forward while sympathetically supporting Ms Dunn throughout.

Time to dig out more Dunn.

Late Night Splendour

Review – The Nightshift. The Orchestra & Chorus of the Age of Enlightenment. John Butt.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s latest Nightshift concert had it all – birthday honours, heads rolling and a body count “higher than Taggart”.

The OAE is at the forefront of bringing classical music to a wider audience and Nightshift is – judging from the raising of hands in the Queen Elizabeth Hall last night – not doing too bad a job as a ”sample” session allowing people to try out classical music.

And the evening is presented by Alistair Appleton, who is just the right side of geeky and excited.

And this particular Nightshift continued to prove not only that the OAE is committed to bringing in new audiences – young and old – but that they are one of the leading ensembles around.

For this Nightshift the players were joined by members of the chorus for selections from the evening’s earlier concert – Zadok the Priest and excerpts from Dixit Dominus as well as the opening movement of Handel’s Eternal Source of Light Divine.

But over and above the superlative performances that the Nightshift presents, it’s the simple joy and enthusiasm of the players that comes across and no more so than that of director John Butt. Not only was it evident that his knowledge is immense but his natural ability to communicate what was behind the music and what it all meant was infectious. It was Butt who made the Taggart reference when bringing to life the chorus Judicabit in Nationibus, and his diary column asides were brilliant. I don’t think I have ever heard the chronology of the Hanoverian Succession dealt with so succinctly and with such humour.

More John Butt I say.

And so to the music. Judging from the reaction of the friends I brought along, each and everyone a non-classical music fan, it was a great success. As ever the OAE played with gusto and precision from the very beginning.

Tim Travers Brown’s performance of Eternal Source of Light Divine was of a simple, hushed beauty heightened by the beautifully tailored interplay with the trumpet soloist. But one plea – please credit all the soloists!

With Zadok The Priest, Butt took no prisoners in terms of tempo but he kept the singing light and real attention to both rhythm and the separate vocal lines.

However the great moments were in Dixit Dominus. Again the opening movement was taken at an exhilarating pace. However the chorus were spot on, with vigorous articulation and perfect diction. And in all the choral movements, Butt ensured that the counterpoint in Handel’s music shone through.

But it was the two solo movements that stood out. The two soprano soloists drawn from the chorus had clean, almost boyish voices. The gentle triplet flow melismas in Tecum Principium held no fears for Natalie Clifton-Griffith. She sailed through them with agility and ease with a purity of voice so suited to this music. She was then joined by her colleague, Grace Davidson, for an achingly beautiful performance of De Torrente in via bibet, possibly Handel’s greatest example of devotional music before Butt unleashed the choral fury of the closing Gloria.

Sixty minutes raced by and suddenly The Nightshift as over. Sadly my one small criticism of the evening was leaving the Queen Elizabeth Hall and being overwhelmed by the dance beats of The Boy Dan Good. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good ‘toon’ but even my friends admitted that after the wonderful performances they had heard in the concert hall, grabbing a glass of wine to a background of 120bpm was a but much.

I am looking forward to the next Nightshift in February. But while Alistair has promised us dancers, perhaps we can have a little less disco?

Aria For … Tuesday – Je vais mourir … Adieu, fière cité (Les Troyens)

Régine Crespin. A great. And as Didon she has no rival. Only a few weeks ago I saw Anna Caterina Antonacci sing this very aria and while it was a mesmerising and musically intelligent performance, Ms Crespin’s performance is in a league of it’s own.

Again I wouldn’t say that Ms Crespin has a “beautiful” voice but it has character and presence and is coupled with incredible technique. From the opening bars she projects Didon’s frustration and sadness. Have the words “mourir” and “immense” ever been said with such conviction and with such weight and clarity for example? And throughout her single-minded focus on the words is vital and alive with dramatic intensity, moving Berlioz’ recitative forward inextricably forward.

The subsequent aria, Adieu, fière cite opens with a wistful, almost nostalgic lilt as I have never heard since. Each and every “adieu” is invested with real emotional weight. Each and every phrase is beautifully moulded and rendered as if by a skilled craftsman culminating in the closing section, again the lilt as Aux nuits d’ivresse and the final floating “finie”.

This isn’t just a memorable and immensely enjoyable moment of the highest standard of music making. It’s a masterclass in great performance.

Aria For … Monday – Träume (Wesendonck Lieder)

I have many recordings of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder on my iPod so it’s always a surprise when shuffle churns up a version I do not often listen to and then wonder why ever not.

And this is a case in point, Danish soprano Elisabeth Meyer-Topsøe who performs the lieder alongside excerpts from Wagner and Strauss’s Vier Letzte lieder.

There is clearly something in the water in Scandinavia that produces such a high standard of singing. Ms Meyer-Topsøe has a rich and warm voice with a beautiful bloom at the top of her range. And this is coupled with a very sure and confident technique and excellent diction.

What is refreshing about this recital is the old-fashioned manner of the performance and I mean that in a very good way. Sometimes new performers try to hard and labour against the music itself it seems. Here, Ms Meyer-Topsøe delivers a solid yet nuanced performance. The drama of the words not overdone but every word carefully placed.

Just listen, for example to the closing lines. They are beautifully floated with just the right touch of emphasis on the words themselves – Und dann sinken in die Gruft leading us back to the world of Tristan und Isolde.

And in this song, as well as throughout the recital, she is sensitively accompanied by the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hans Norbert Bihlmaier.

Now excuse me while I return and listen to the Ms Meyer-Topsøe’s entire recital from the top.

“Remember Me”

Review – Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers – French Exchange (Sarah Connolly, Fernando Guimarães, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Jonathan Cohen).

The second instalment in the OAE’s QH&L’s series did not completely match the white hot intensity of the inaugural concert of the series. Personally, I think that this had more to do with the programming than the performers and performances themselves.

While I can understand the connection between the baroque French musical style and that of Henry Purcell, it seemed like a strange leap of artistic faith to conjoined him with Rameau who wrote his first opera almost forty years after Purcell’s death even if the programming included detours via Charpentier and Lalande.

Needless to say Sarah Connolly didn’t so much steal as command the evening. She is – in my mind – one of the greatest mezzos on the stage and concert hall today. I remember her more than notable performance in an otherwise disappointing Mahler Symphony No. 8 and have seen her on stage a number of times as well as having all her excellent recordings. And on the evening she not only bathed the audience with her wonderfully warm, resonant and luxurious voice but also demonstrated a keen and intelligent musicianship.

But it wasn’t in the set pieces taken from either Medée Hippolyte et Aricie but in the single and exquisitely performed aria from Dido and Aeneas, Thy Hand Belinda – When I Am Laid In Earth. A collective stillness settled on the audience during this most eloquent and beautiful rendition where Ms Connolly coloured each phrase and spun out gentle ornamentation. ‘Remember me’ has rarely – if ever – sounded so heartbreaking. I only wish the OAE had gone to the expense of closing with a real chorus – even just single voices.

Last minute changes to the programme led to some confusion as to who was singing what, when but even in the chunks of Charpentier and Rameau it was Ms Connolly who dominated. Her dignified yet impassioned delivery of the two scenes from Medée were a timely reminder that she will be performing the title role next year at the London Coliseum. Its a shame that her clear and fluent French diction won’t be heard in stage and you don’t have a ticket for ENO’s forthcoming production in 2013 now is the time to get one.

Cruelle mère des amour from Hippolyte et Aricie was another tour de force with Ms Connolly demonstrating that even within the confines of more-than-mannered French baroque opera there is plenty of scope for Phèdre’s emotional turmoil. And in the subsequent scene with her son, she more than compensated for the lukewarm Hippolyte of Guimarães.

Indeed and sadly Guimarães never really moved beyond lukewarm. While his voice has both a pleasing if one dimensional timbre and is both flexible and fluid, there was – for me – something of the bland about it. Perhaps it was the choice of repertoire on the evening but I didn’t think his voice particularly suited either the Purcell or the Rameau.

As before, the orchestra directed by Jonathan Cohen were superlative, digging with gusto into the orchestral excerpts from Charpentier, Rameau and Purcell and making the most of the rather non-descript Lalande. Indeed their clear enjoyment and passion for the music was demonstrated after the concert by two of the players extolling the joys and challenges of playing at a pitch of A392.

Ultimately however, Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers Parte Deux – bar inspired and assured performances by Ms Connolly – failed to reach the emotional intensity of the first concert.

Aria for … Friday – Tace la notte! (Il Trovatore)

Ah! if only Ms Sondra Rodvanovsky (here with the Philharmonic of Russia conducted by Constantine Orbelian) had sung this wonderful aria from Il Trovatore like this when I saw McVicar’s production at the Met. Sadly neither she nor the rest of the cast were on anything close to good form on that night but here she knocks it out of the ball park.

If nothing else this single aria on a rather remarkable recital disc reminds me that this soprano is a formidable soprano. She soars with a richness and beauty of tone through the opening section even if her sense of vocal and dynamics is more starkly black and white that shades of any particular colour. And although perhaps I would prefer a little more finesse in the cadenza before the allegro, her pinpoint accuracy and vocal swagger in the second section makes up for it.

Not a bad start for a Friday …