**** On 24 November she was still in Belgium. With a concert at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, and a programme that demonstrated her expected strengths: baroque and belcanto. On this cd Joyce DiDonato reveals a very distinctive side of herself. The American mezzo performs Into the Fire, a song cycle specially composed for her and the Brentano Quartet by her compatriot Jake Heggie. It is a tribute to the underrated French artist Camille Claudel. Also included are several songs by Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy arranged for string quartet.
Throughout the entire cd we enjoy the full richness of the diverse timbres of DiDonato's voice. Particularly beautiful is, for example, her interpretation of Ach, Lieb, ich muss nun scheiden or her wonderfully high pianissimi in the closing phrase of Die Nacht. It takes some getting used to the accompaniment by string quartet, but the different sound, on the other hand, gives a different accent to the vocal interpretation that makes you listen with renewed attention to these well-known songs by Richard Strauss. Moreover, the arrangement by Misha Amory (violist of the quartet) and Mark Steinberg (first violin of the quartet) is so stylistically faithful to Strauss that it recalls intimate and refined string passages in Strauss' operas such as Capriccio.
Between the songs by Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy, the Brentano Quartet plays an extremely atmospheric Adagio by Belgian composer Guillaume Lekeu. The Trois chansons de Bilitis by Claude Debussy are performed by DiDonato and the Brentano Quartet in an arrangement by Jake Heggie, which provides a nice transition to his own composition, Camille Claudel: Into the Fire. In these subtle Debussy songs, the delicate string sound accentuates the sensual character of the songs that DiDonato sings with high "Pelléas et Mélisande" quality and seductive virtuosity.
Pure melancholy
The cycle dedicated to the tragic life of the underrated artist Camille Claudel, who died in solitude in a psychiatric institution in 1943, alternates between, on the one hand, DiDonato's vocal dramatic strength as an expression of the despair of the artist who in her time had to fight as a woman for her right to be an artist, and on the other hand, the deep emotion of the sad life story as a neglected and ultimately rejected lover of Auguste Rodin. Deeply moving is La Petite Châtelaine: a song about the child that Claudel was not allowed to have, and is celebrated as a child that only remains as a "child of stone". A cycle in which the musical refinement breathes pure melancholy and which ends with an epilogue in which the reciting vocal line, on a bed of soft strings, reflects on the sad life of the artist. A valuable work that certainly deserves to be discovered and that DiDonato defends excellently with her intense art.
Moreover, this recital is a live recording made at the famous Wigmore Hall in London, where the knowledgeable audience greets the performance with enthusiastic applause. The recording was made in December last year and DiDonato and the Brentano Quartet give Silent Night by Franz Xaver Gruber as an encore in this context. A suggestion for under the Christmas tree?
- WHAT: Into the Fire. Live at Wigmore Hall. Strauss, Lekeu, Debussy, Heggie
- WHO: Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano) & Brentano Quartet [Mark Steinberg & Serena Canin (violin), Misha Amory (viola) Nina Lee (cello)]
- RELEASE: Erato 0190295642198