*** 1/2 BERLIOZ: “Les nuits d’ete”; arias. Susan Graham, soprano; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; John Nelson, conductor. (Sony Classical)
We can read a lot of griping about the low estate of singing today, compared to various putative golden ages. Well, 20 or 30 years from now, when we’re telling another generation that they just don’t have singing to match the wonder years of the 1990s, this disc will be often entered as evidence. American soprano Susan Graham has made herself perfectly at home in the French repertory, and she delivers this moving, original music with tellingly focused phrasing and an extraordinary combination of power and purity. Nothing she does sounds uncontrolled or without purpose, yet somehow everything also sounds completely natural and spontaneous. John Nelson and the Covent Garden band provide sensitive accompaniments.
*
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