Now that it appears Orchestra Hall has forfeited its responsibility to present vocal recitals by major international singers (next season`s Allied Arts schedule is barren of voice programs), it has fallen to the Ravinia Festival to take up the musical slack.
Thus far this season, Ravinia has done so nobly. Having brought us admirable recitals by Jessye Norman and Bryn Terfel, the festival`s handsomely refurbished Murray Theatre provided an appropriately intimate setting Monday night when Swiss soprano Edith Mathis presented a recital of German and French songs, accompanied at the piano by David Owen Norris.
Mathis, who was appearing for the first time at Ravinia, and Norris are faculty members of Ravinia`s new Program for Singers at the Steans Institute for Young Artists. They could hardly have set a finer example for the aspiring young singers in the audience than with their thoughtful and generally satisfying performances.
One knows Mathis from her many recordings as an experienced interpreter of the German music that forms her central repertory, from Bach and Handel to Mozart, Schubert and Mahler. Hers is a bright, light, lyric soprano, flexible and precisely tuned, informed by impeccable musicianship and technique. If the tone has lost a degree of youthful freshness and can assume a slight edge under pressure, Mathis invariably deploys the voice with such taste and intelligence that such flaws are of slight concern.
She is a singer`s recitalist, one who trades in musical communication rather than ego projection. This was not to say there weren`t dramatic moments throughout her program of Mozart, Brahms, Duparc and Richard Strauss. Most of the time, however, the atmosphere was low-key: It was just Mathis and her excellent pianist taking a small audience into their confidence, sharing 26 gems of the songmaker`s art with ears willing to listen.
Mathis preferred to paint each song as a single mood rather than dwell on verbal and musical nuance in a manner made famous by certain famous German interpreters of German lieder. This is a perfectly valid approach to the songs of Strauss and Brahms, who treated poetic texts at face value.
In the latter composer`s ”Vergebliches Staendchen,” she took the parts of the virtuous village lass and her ardent swain, proving a charming storyteller. Strauss` ”Allerseelen” was a study in deep romantic nostalgia. With her Mozart group, the singer stressed a charming simplicity of expression, even if the voice didn`t sound sufficiently warmed until she had neared the end.
It was interesting to find her dispensing the fragrance of Duparc, but the songs did not sound quite idiomatic: ”La Vie Anterieure” and
”L`Invitation au Voyage,” for instance, really require a more sensuous instrument and better French diction than Mathis was able to muster.
Though the recital marked the first collaboration of Mathis and Norris, his sensitive and self-effacing pianism suggested their partnership could be long term.
