Italian soprano Rosa Feola was a prizewinner at the 2010 Operalia competition, and Welsh National Opera’s audiences fell in love with her when she sang Elvira in last autumn’s tour of I Puritani. Now she makes a rewarding solo CD debut with this programme largely of little-known Italian songs – Liszt’s Three Petrarch Sonnets are included, too, by virtue of their Italian poet. Her singing is marked by poise and eloquence, and she spins out seamless phrases with unflagging care for the words, whether in Respighi’s Tuscan songs, Martucci’s more expansive Tre Pezzi, or parallel Dante settings by Ponchielli and Pinsuti. Even in the Liszt, which takes Feola into the higher, more dramatic reaches, there is no sense of her communication being hemmed in by vocal limitations. Pianist Iain Burnside is supportive and vivid throughout, especially when suggesting the flitting woodland spirits in Respighi’s Deità silvane.
