American Christine Brewer’s soprano brings to mind voices like Eileen Farrell’s, Helen Traubel’s, even Kirsten Flagstad’s: it is grand and sumptuous, dramatic in its breadth, impressive in its cutting power and accuracy. Her middle voice is rich and warm, and listening to her I realized that I had the luxury of never fearing that a high note would be missed. This recital of familiar and not-so-familiar arias and songs from operas, operettas, and American musicals, all sung in English, is very impressive indeed. In Donna Anna’s “Don Ottavio, son morta…Or sai chi l’onore” she is imperious and vengeful and right-on-the-money accurate (although I wonder if she’d be capable of handling the coloratura in “Non mi dir” later in the opera). After a thrilling roller-coaster of a ride through Weber’s “Ocean, thou mighty monster”, with a gleaming, big high-C to cap it off, she offers a simply beautiful rendition of an aria (with chorus) from Arthur Sullivan’s The Golden Legend, an exercise in legato and constraint, regardless of how high the tessitura takes her.
“You’ll never walk alone” is sung devoid of fat and sentimentality (as much as possible), Beethoven’s “Ah! perfido” is grandly, authoritatively delivered, and the “Inflammatus” from Rossini’s Stabat Mater probably has never rung out so luxuriously, although these latter two arias sound strange in translation. Brewer’s Countess Maritza is a bit too large for the music–she lumbers a bit through the fast section, and the emphasis on the middle-lower voice is not flattering; still, you could frame those big, high B-naturals and hang them on your walls and get points for fine decorating. As Alceste and Elisabeth (Tannhäuser) she takes the grand pose again and succeeds.
The recital ends with a surprise–Bob Merrill’s “I came on two buses and a train” (Lili’s song) from the 1961 musical Carnival, which is sung with such simplicity and sweetness that it will make you want to send Ms Brewer a thank-you note. The arias with chorus are hysterically over-recorded, but otherwise the sonics are excellent, and as always, David Parry finds precisely the right style for each scene. This is a remarkable recital and I recommend it highly.
