Natalie Dessay.(Sound Recording Review)

"AMOR" Arias and scenes from Ariadne auf Naxos, Arabella and Der Rosenkavalier; Brentano Lieder. With Lott, Kirchschlager, Koch, Allen; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Pappano. Virgin Classics 457052

This new venture showcases the abundant gifts of Natalie Dessay. Conductor Antonio Pappano is a perfect partner for the French soprano; both are musical and theatrical in the extreme, with effects both large and small well handled. Dessay's voice may be growing a bit darker in the middle--and a mite less agile on top--but she can still shape coloratura roulades with breathtaking case and interpretive statement. No matter how often one hears this artist perform her party piece, "Gross-machtige Prinzessin," from Ariadne auf Naxos (which opens the disc), there is always something new evident--here, a deepening of the worldly-wise bittersweet philosophy of the text, and a sharpening of intent in the coloratura passages, which seem to brim with meaning, even without words. In the Ariadne Prologue, which follows, Dessay walks the line between coquetry and sincerity as she lures the Composer of Sophie Koch into submission in their duet. Koch, her rapture tempered by just the right touch of self-importance and naivete, and running on all cylinders at the climax of the scene, packs quite a wallop. Thomas Allen and Felicity Lott offer deft characterizations as the Music Master and the Prima Donna.

Four Strauss songs set to poems by the nineteenth-century German poet Clemens Brentano are essayed deliciously. In "Amor," written in the vein of Zerbinetta's music, Dessay creates a vivid drama, vocally ...