Karita Mattila swept on to the Wigmore Hall platform and scooped the audience into the palm of her hand for two hours. In part, that’s because the soprano is such a fabulous and fearlessly direct stage performer, but also well up for a bit of diva parody in three superb encores by Hollaender, Merikanto and Strauss. Fundamentally, though, it’s about the rich nuance of her vocal sound, which still ranges from the full-on operatic to the intimate, all delivered with a laser-sharp awareness of both text and context.
Starting with Brahms’s Zigeunerlieder, Mattila was boldly full-blooded from the word go, with no trace of vibrato, though there was just the occasional tonal scoop early on. But she expertly narrowed the focus in the most inward of the songs, and for the rest of the evening she was in her element across the full range of the voice.
In Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, one admired in particular the creamily sustained legato of Im Treibhaus, an early study for the third act of Tristan und Isolde, and the ringing top in Schmerzen, utterly secure and expressive. Best of all in these five songs was Träume, also a Tristan sketch, where she spun a soft spell of controlled sound, beautifully complemented by Ville Matvejeff’s well-judged piano postlude.
The jarring contrast of Berg’s four songs opus 2, sombre and expressionistic, embodied Mattila’s mastery of text. The way she spat out the plosive Stirb! – Die! – at the end of the final song was stunning. The vocal equipment was in overdrive now, and a group of seven well-chosen Strauss songs found her ending the recital as she began it: formidable.
