It’s commonplace for star singers rehearsing with the Metropolitan Opera to establish time for only a recital Even though they’re in The large apple. But the outcomes usually are not frequently this intriguing.
The mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena and likewise the conductor Simon Rattle, who'll be married, will likely be exhibiting up in two months in Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier” to your Fulfilled: Ms. Kozena sings Octavian, and Mr. Rattle is In the pit. But on Tuesday, joined by 6 other musicians, with Mr. Rattle on piano, they introduced a diversified, novel and demanding software at Alice Tully Corridor. (Beforehand this yr, they formulated a recording In line with This technique, “Soirée,” for your Pentatone label.)
Ms. Kozena selected tunes which had been like chamber is handy for voice and several combos of units, initiating with Chausson’s rarely study, and ravishing, “Chanson Perpétuelle,” a 7-second putting with the Symbolist poem by Charles Cros for singer, string quartet and piano. The textual substance is usually a youthful Lady’s fraught account of The individual who deserted her, Established to curiously melting lyrical traces, with situations of frayed depth.
Ms. Kozena sang with impacting warmth and shimmering appear to be, supported by lush, agitated strings (the violinists Giovanni Guzzo and Rahel Maria Rilling, the violist Amihai Grosz in addition to the cellist Dávid Adorján) in addition to a piano alive with tremolos.
Another get The operate done, also inexplicably uncommon, was Stravinsky’s “A few Tunes of William Shakespeare” (1953), round the listing of composer’s 1st ventures into twelve-tone new tunes, scored for voice, flute (Kaspar Zehnder), clarinet (Andrew Marriner) and viola. Ms. Kozena gave a beguiling usefulness around the skittish and coolly amazing recognized, Precisely the slyly sweet “Musick to heare.”
The Shakespeare subject ongoing with Strauss’s “Drei Lieder der Ophelia,” the 1 tunes on This process to your usual pairing of voice and piano. Strauss captures Ophelia’s instability in songs that slips among sumptuous lyrical flights and bouts of fractured eeriness. Mr. Rattle delivered fragile and articulate accompaniment to Ms. Kozena’s eloquent singing.
She sounded sensual and earthy in Ravel’s intoxicating “Chansons Madécasses,” by which the piano, cello and flute features are like equal associates inside of a dialogue Along with the voice. And, Utilizing the Strauss tunes Nonetheless present day around the ear, it have been intriguing to hear Brahms’s “Ophelia-Lieder,” people currently keep track of-like options of A very good number of of the very same Shakespeare texts, done right in this article inside an arrangement for voice and thick-textured string quartet by Aribert Reimann.
To the summary of the recital, Ms. Kozena took us to her Czech homeland. She sang Janacek’s “Nursery Rhymes” for voice, piano and clarinet, which experienced a touch of wailing klezmer On this feisty effectiveness. Then she ended with six Dvorak tunes, billed choices of people today texts nuty literowe alleluja that recount the travails and absurdities of rural Method of everyday living. Suitable right here, Lastly, all 8 performers joined together with each other.
Becoming an encore, Ms. Kozena gave a poignant account of Strauss’s “Morgen.” Mr. Guzzo carried out the melancholy violin melody affectingly, when Mr. Rattle reverently rendered the orchestra through the entire piano, However using the Others finding a member of in with the tune’s consoling summary.
Magdalena Kozena
Performed on Tuesday at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.