Here’s an opera-singer-goes-off-piste CD that’s unusually rewarding. Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and jazz pianist Baptiste Trotignan form a fruitful partnership for a programme centred on Kurt Weill writing from both sides of the Atlantic. Lindsey’s assimilation of the style sounds near effortless, and only occasionally does she give the feeling she has anything to prove. The first song, Nanna’s Lied, has her voice turning on a sixpence from Weimar drawl to a Lieder-singer’s poise and back again. From the deliciously baritonal depths of Denn Wie Man Sich Bettet, So Liegt Man from the opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny to the Broadway sweetness of Buddy on the Nightshift is quite a jolt, but most transitions are smoother, with Trotignon imaginatively linking up some mini-medleys. The disc also takes in some little gems by other Austrian-born émigrés. Korngold’s Mond, So Gehst Du Wieder Auf is a highlight; so is Alma Mahler’s Hymne, which unleashes Lindsey’s full classical voice, and glorious it is, too.
