A stellar recital—on the evening of Tuesday, October 23rd—by the incandescent mezzo-soprano, Elīna Garanča—excellently accompanied by pianist Kevin Murphy, replacing the renowned Malcolm Martineau—has further gilded the beginning of the thus far superb new season at Carnegie Hall, which has already featured outstanding concerts given by the San Francisco Symphony, Jonas Kaufmann with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique.

 

The singer looked ravishing with her hair down, wearing a stunning purple gown, and hauntingly performed an exquisite opening set drawn from Robert Schumann’s incomparable early song cycle, Myrthen. Few lieder in the literature could be lovelier than the first two selections, “Widmung”—with a text by Friedrich Rückert—and “Der Nussbaum” but the other songs were also extraordinary, including “Jemand” (after a poem by Robert Burns) and two other Rückertlieder: the “Bride’s Song” I & II.

 

This was followed by Richard Wagner’s celebrated early song-cycle, the Wesendonck Lieder, also magnificently realized. The first half of the program closed astonishingly with an unforgettable rendition of “Träume”, one of the greatestliederin the classical music canon.

 

For the second part of the evening, Garanča wore her hair up and was clothed in a bewitching red gown, opening with Maurice Ravel’s lush cycle, Shéhérazade, a setting of poems by Tristan Klingsor, a member of the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde circle, Les Apaches—the singer achieved some of her most sublime moments of the evening in passages from the first and longest of the three songs, “Asie”.

 

One of the most welcome facets of this recital was the opportunity to hear some less familiar repertory, in this case the Six Popular Spanish Songs of Manuel de Falla, the final set on the program, beautifully delivered by Garanča.

 

Ardent applause was rewarded with three indelible encores. First Garanča affectingly sang the enchanting song, “Aizver actiņas un smaidi” by her eminent and pioneering countryman, Jāzeps Vītols, possibly the finest Latvian composer. She then introduced a thrilling, dramatic performance of the exhilarating "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Habanera) from Carmen by Georges Bizet—she has played the title role to enormous acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera—with the remark that this is “the reason I have the red dress on”. She concluded the evening gloriously with a luminous rendering of the gorgeous aria "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" from Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns—she has been appearing in the lead role of the new production of this opera at the Metropolitan Opera, opposite Roberto Alagna. I eagerly await her return to Carnegie Hall.