Ranging from her Messiah with Trevor Pinnock in 1988
to Hercules with Marc Minkowski, newly issued, this compilation gives
us more than a decade’s worth of Anne Sophie von Otter’s consistently
– and increasingly – expressive musicianship. It’s strong on linguistic
and stylistic affinities – French, Italian, German, English, Latin,
Scandinavian languages and Baroque, Classical, Romantic, opera, operetta,
lieder, orchestral song, chanson, melodies, light contemporary pop and
even Mel Torme’s The Christmas Song. The graph of von Otter’s musical
engagement has risen strongly since her first LP in 1983; her voice
has steadied, deepened and tonally grown stronger with an added range
of colouration and inflection. Its increasing expressive agility has
not come at the expense of a loss of its inherent beauty but has led
instead to performances, especially in the Classical arena, of ever
more subtle depth.
In a highlights collection such as this almost all
the selected items reveal creditable qualities of tonal production and
acumen. Her much-admired taste – sometimes, I feel, a critical pejorative
- has always seemed to me to be entirely at the music’s service. Certainly
as a snapshot of her decade’s development the set offers its own, admittedly
fractured, rewards. Opening in sultry fashion, von Otter is not afraid
to bleach and roughen her tone in Carmen even if, in truth, she’s not
one of nature’s natural floosies. Her Voi che sapete though is
excellent, incipiently sensual, and the metrical flexibility of her
Handelian singing impressive, especially so the aria from Ariodante,
Dopo notte. The impression of Handelian rightness is signally
enhanced by the rapt simplicity of her singing of Se d’un Dio
from Giunta l’ora fata. Lest one doubt it her Mendelssohn (Elijah)
evinces a steady and immaculately controlled lower compass to a voice
that soars with effortless freedom. She indulges her wit in Offenbach
and a certain languid wistfulness in Korngold, is a mightily impressive
Mahlerian and has a stab at Weill (not entirely convincingly). The Chaminade
songs never quite engage as they should but the Gunnar Hahn does and
the final songs are to put it mildly an eclectic potpourri of the chaps
from Abba, Elvis Costello, the lugubrious Franz Xaver Gruber and Mel
Torme and Robert Wells’ The Christmas Song. Which should
scare the life out of someone at least.
A well chosen selection then of von Otter’s repertoire
and a solid decade’s worth of distinction, exploration and achievement.
Jonathan Woolf
Anne Sophie von Otter,
soprano with various accompaniments