Search - Elizabeth Watts :: Schubert Lieder

Watts is appealing and intense in her debut recital

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/11/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Just turning thirty, English soprano Elizabeth Watts doesn't look like a Schubert singer on the cover -- she looks like she's waiting for a Richard Avedon fashion shoot -- but this singer has been atracting serious attention. She was a finalist in the 2007 Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and an award-winner on several other fronts. Her debut CD of 20 Schubert lieder, evenly mixing the familiar and unfamiliar, attracted raves in the UK (are you shocked?).



Her recital reveals Watts to have a light-to-medium soprano that's not very distinctive in tone -- she could be any of a dozen promising young Paminas and Sussanahs -- which she uses, however, with compelling intensity. She isn't skating over the surface of these great songs, which have challenged every master of the art. There's a temulous sincerity on display that is touching. Schubert deamnds a greater range of expression than Watts possesses at this stage of her career, and she's too fond of rather droopy tempos, but she makes us think that the music matters, which is indispensable.



After five or six songs, I began to feel that her approach was too serious and unvaried. Even so, one has to applaud Sony BMG for recording a rising star in repertoire that not many buyers are going for nowadays. Accompanist Roger Vignobles is expert but goes along too much with the singer's tendency to soften the rhythm and slow the pace.



Here's the program:

An den Mond, D193



Suleika I, D720



Im Abendrot, D799



Sei mir gegrüsst! D741 (Rückert)



Die Forelle, D550



Heimliches Lieben D922 (Klenke)



Der Sänger am Felsen, D482



Thekla, D595 (Schiller)



An die Sonne D270



Aus Diego Manazares. Ilmerine, D458



Nacht und Träume, D827



Frühlingsglaube, D686



Die Blumensprache D519 (Platner)



Nähe des Geliebten, D162



An die Nachtigall, D497



Liane, D298 (Mayrhofer)



Das Madchens Klage, D191 (Schiller)



Nachtviolen D752 (Mayrhofer)



Marie D658 (Novalis)



Lambertine, D301 (Stoll)



Die Männer sind méchant, D866 No. 3"