Marina Rebeka MOZART Arias

'A Latvian soprano who has dazzled audiences in New York and Vienna with her impassioned performance of Donna Anna,’ proclaims the jewel case. Reviews I’ve checked out were more mixed. Still, Marina Rebeka makes a fine showing in Anna’s ‘Non mi dir’, with strong, bright, evenly produced tone, a shapely sense of line and precise coloratura. A touch more warmth (we surely have to believe that Anna’s avowal of love to Ottavio is genuine) and closer engagement with the text would have made her performance even better.

With the hint of spinto steel in her voice, it’s a shame that Rebeka doesn’t include Anna’s ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ here, opting instead for Elvira’s ‘Mi tradì’, sung firmly enough, if rather carefully, without any special illumination. In the two Queen of the Night arias she unleashes spitfire coloratura to bring the house down. Konstanze’s gargantuan showstopper ‘Martern aller Arten’ would send any Pasha packing. This is another performance of fierce determination that lacks a tempering tenderness and pathos. Here and elsewhere the orchestral contribution is perfectly competent but rather wanting in temperament.

The hard glare that can afflict Rebeka’s top notes, useful in expressions of vengeance and defiance, is less desirable in Pamina’s aria, taken at a very deliberate, old-fashioned tempo. This is surely not her part. Despite an occasional tendency to sing on the flat side of the note, the Countess’s arias suit Rebeka much better. She finds the right inwardness for ‘Porgi amor’ and builds to a ringing, affirmative climax in ‘Dove sono’. Best of all is her Elettra in Idomeneo, sung with an ideal baleful, impassioned grandeur. If Rebeka doesn’t quite succeed in delivering all of ‘this gorgeous music to the listener’s heart’, as she puts it in the booklet, her debut recital announces a soprano of impressive vocal accomplishment and, at her best, dramatic flair. (Richard Wigmore / Gramophone)

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