Midsummer Night
Royal; Orchestra of English National Opera / Gardner
EMI 268 1922

Release date May 2009

Somtimes a disc comes along that simply ‘works’ from beginning to end. It can be difficult to define what produces this effect - it may be judicious choice of repertoire, performed in a particular order with key changes that augment the overall pleasure rather than jarring the ears, combined with an exceptionally high standard of musicianship on the part of the player or singer. This is one of these discs. Kate Royal’s inspiration for this album came from her first major role in a 20th-century opera, that of the Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. She writes: “The music got under my skin in a way I had not experienced before...With the Governess’s ‘Tower Scene’ in mind I went in search of other arias that shared a similar combination of intensity and abandon”. And what an interesting collection she has come up with. The sultry langour of Alwyn’s Midsummer Night (from Miss Julie) with its lush orchestration hinting of Debussy and Richard Strauss shares the sound-world of Stravinsky’s Nightingale’s Aria, composed sixty years earlier. The unsettling, shifting music and desperate climax of Cressida’s aria At the haunted end of the day (from Walton’s Troilus and Cressida) gives way to the stark simplicity of voice and harp at the start of an aria from American composer Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, which Royal sings with great tenderness and a most effective bleached tone in her upper range in the repeat of the final verse. There’s a harp introduction to the next song, too, but of a very diffent nature - a rhapsodic cadenza that introduces Rusalka’s luscious Song to the moon, where Royal displays some of the darker hues in her voice. An interesting feature of all these songs is the variety of Royal’s high notes. She has developed a thrilling, gleaming quality at the top of her range, where she is obviously very secure and capable of varying the tone considerably, conveying strength or fragility, ecstasy or vulnerability as the music requires. She is equally successful in the less overtly showy numbers, such as the Embroidery Aria from Britten’s Peter Grimes, where her gravity provides a good foil for Sir Thomas Allen’s Balstrode. Vilja’s Song from The Merry Widow, more Britten and arias by Barber, Messager, Bernard Herrmann and Korngold (Mariettas Lied from Die Tote Stadt) complete the recital. Royal’s emotional investment in each song is very impressive, and I’ve enjoyed this disc even more with repeated listening. It’s a marvellous journey through some lesser-known operatic works, and a good buy for anyone with a touch of the romantic in their heart!

Reviewed by Anne McAlister