Kate Royal's recital at the Wigmore Hall on Saturday night consisted of an immaculately prepared and presented selection of songs by Brahms, Debussy, Poulenc and Strauss.
But while Royal's now-famous poise and innate class was brought to the music of all four composers, it was only in the Strauss group where she went beyond this sublime refinement to really engage with the texts and communicate emotion to the audience.
An announcement was made to inform us that Royal would be opening with Brahms's 'Serenade' from his Vier Gesänge, Op.70, instead of the published order, which began with 'Im Garten am Seegestade'. This turned what would have been a difficult opening into a real killer. Although Royal was not defeated by any of the song's challenges, she was insufficiently warmed up to convince in this piece, with its restrained ambiance, created through an exposed vocal line at relatively high tessitura.
Whilst her pianist, the excellent and very experienced Roger Vignoles, created magic during 'Lerchengesang', it wasn't until the second half of the fourth song, 'Abendregen', that Royal really appeared to find her stride, gain full access to the colours in her voice and spin a pleasing line with her extremely beautiful voice. The Brahms group therefore failed to make the impression which it might have, had it been programmed later in the evening. Aside from the vocal challenges in the music, the texts of the first three are so abstract that it would be a rare artist indeed who could create enough atmosphere in which to do them justice, from the moment of walking out on stage.
The Debussy group which followed, Cinq Poèmes de Charles Baudelaire, was more successful from the point of view of the singing, with Royal encompassing all of the songs' technical obstacles with apparent ease. Yet there was a distinct lack of generosity in the approach, and a sense that Royal was slightly removed from the texts, working skilfully to create an exquisite interpretation from the outside, rather than basing her performance on an emotional response to the poems. Although there was much to admire, I longed for something more inflected, and more arresting. Lines such as 'Je croyais respirer le parfum de ton sang' in 'Le balcon' were tastefully delivered, but though I wouldn't suggest for one moment that there is any place for vulgarity in mélodie, and Debussy in particular, some pointing of or luxuriating in such unusual and arresting lines in the poetry would have transformed Royal's performance and saved it from the bland perfection that it tended towards. 'La mort des amants', the last song in the group, had all of the serenity but very little of the profundity contained in Baudelaire's lines, although it was wonderful to hear her voice in full flight at the end of the second verse, combing strength with a wonderful morbidezza so that the ear is never assaulted, always enchanted.
The subsequent Poulenc set, his Fiançailles pour rire, received much the same treatment as the Debussy, although if anything it was even more wanting in character, particularly the second song, 'Dans l'herbe' which had little of the regret and desolation that Vilmorin's poem captures, on the subject of the unnoticed death of the unnamed man. It wasn't until the highly seductive 'Violon' that Royal began to cut loose a little and pick out some of the more illustrative words in this languorously sexy poem. If only she had dared to take ownership of the other French songs on her programme in the same way.
Royal and Vignoles closed their programmed recital with Strauss's four Mädchenblumen and two further Strauss songs, 'Ich wollt ein Sträßlein binden' and 'Als mir dein Lied erklang!'. Royal finally showed her true colours as the excellent and charming artist she is, supremely indifferent to any of the songs' difficulties, and gave remarkably polished but also characterful performances, indicating that she is already developing into a Strauss soprano of considerable stature. It was a very successful and upbeat end to a concert which had otherwise failed to live up to the sum of its parts. Royal's choice of encore in this context was therefore somewhat incongruous – 'L'Anée en vain chasse l'année' from Debussy's L'Enfant Prodigue made for a rather long and morose listening experience after the rapture of the Strauss. That said, it was her best performance of the whole evening, and the only piece in which she was, for me, genuinely moving. Her approach here was far more direct and instinctive, as opposed to the thoroughly 'coached' impression she gave me in the rest of the programme. She captured the drama and flare she has demonstrated on the opera stage, particularly in Adès's The Tempest and, most recently, Die Zauberflöte. Opera and song are different disciplines, but at times in this extremely beautiful recital it would have enhanced the performance if Royal had brought a little of her operatic flair to the concert hall.
By John Woods
Read our review of Kate Royal's debut album on EMI here.
Read recent concert reviews, including Thomas Hampson and Simon Keenlyside's recitals at the Wigmore Hall, here.