Danielle de Niese has always been a theatrical animal par excellence. The concert platform, however, can be very different from – and more exposing than – the stage, and her recital with Julius Drake had its variable moments.
She was at her best when she was able to bring her innate theatricality to her material. Yet one also noticed some vocal inequalities, particularly in the first half. There was an edge in her tone in the John Dowland songs with which she started, while Hugo Wolf proved something of a testing ground; Verborgenheit and Im Frühling revealed suspect intonation when singing softly. In Dem Schatten Meiner Locken, on the other hand, was utterly seductive, the suggestiveness in her voice matched by the gleam in her eyes and the sly smile that played round her lips.
Bizet and Grieg came after the interval. Bizet’s Adieu de l’Hôtesse Arabe was all beguiling sultriness. Grieg’s Haugtussa, his only song cycle, is no masterpiece, though De Niese brought considerable dramatic subtlety to bear on its narrative of the affair between a herd girl and the bounder who seduces and abandons her. Drake was at his finest here, too, finding deep emotional resonances in the deceptively simple accompaniments.
The encores, songs from shows and movies, found De Niese in her element, though, flirting unashamedly with both Drake and her audience, singing I Hate Men from Kiss Me Kate with delicious glee, and bringing the house down with Gershwin’s I’ve Got Rhythm.
