Midsummer Night
Kate Royal, soprano
Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Bernard Herrmann, et al
Crouch End Festival Chorus and the Orchestra of
English National Opera
Edward Gardner, conductor
EMI
Kate Royal’s second solo album interprets arias from 20th-century operas, each sung by a heroine describing an aspect of nature, a dream, a bird, a moment of pain. Invariably the scoring and atmosphere call to mind an internal longing.
It’s a delight to hear the program’s better-known works — “Song to the Moon” from Rusalka, “Marietta’s Lied” from Die tote Stadt, Léhar’s “Vilja Lied” — sung so directly, honestly and without affectation. Royal’s lovely, full lyric soprano blossoms as it rises and has great dynamic range. How brave and intelligent of her to have “discovered” arias that fit the “midsummer night” mood; one from William Alwyn’s Miss Julie is so evocative that we can almost smell the flowers, and Susannah’s aria (from Carlisle Floyd’s opera) “The Trees are on the Mountain,” with its folk imagery and melody, is heartrendingly sad in its directness. Cathy’s melodious aria of longing from Bernard Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights is a real find; Ellen’s “Embroidery aria” from Peter Grimes is the picture of regret and loss. The six other selections are equally affecting and artfully sung.
-Robert Levine
