Opera Today

ìI send my heart up to thee, all my heart in this, my singingî Robert Browning.

The title of this CD is taken from the text of one of Amy Beachís Three Browning Songs, which close the program. Given Deborah Voigtís ability to sing this program with completely natural expression and crystal clear diction while maintaining a consistently high standard of vocal production and musicianship, it is easy to believe that in her singing she shares with us something of what is most dear to her own heart. Fortunately for us, in doing this she is also giving us a fine recording of American art songs, some of which will be quite familiar to many listeners, others of which will be wonderful new discoveries.

Joachim Carlos Martini is well represented in the Naxos catalog with recordings of Handel oratorios, including Athalia, Saul, Il Trionfo del Tempo . . ., Deborah, the ìpasticcioî oratorios, Gideon and Nabal, and this recent release of LíAllegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. Narrowly traditional views of what an oratorio ought to beóa Biblical narrative in a dramatic frameóare stretched here, and this is a good reminder that the term ìoratorioî was used flexibly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The 19th Century French composer Charles Gounod is best known for his lyric dramas / operas Faust (1859) and RomÈo et Juliette (1867), and the very popular MÈditation sur le 1er prÈlude de piano de J. S. Bach (1852), arranged as an Ave Maria in 1859. Yet the dominant portion of Gounodís creative output was church music, the amount of which surpassed that of any other composer of the 19th Century. In spite of this, the church music of Gounod remains an obscure portion of his oeuvre.