One of the warmest per­son­al­it­ies on the op­era and con­cert stage today, sop­rano Di­ana Dam­rau has put to­geth­er a be­guil­ing pro­gram for her re­cit­al at the Fest­spiel­haus Baden-Baden.The se­lec­tion of Ro­mantic to fin-de-siècle pieces not only un­der­scores her own vo­cal artistry, but also pays trib­ute to her ac­com­pan­ist Xavi­er de Maistre and, in par­tic­u­lar, to the dia­phan­ous del­ic­acy of his in­stru­ment, the harp.

The use of the harp to re­place the pi­ano in a voice re­cit­al is a truly unique and un­ex­pec­ted mu­sic­al treat. De Maistre does more than simply trans­pose the pi­ano part to his in­stru­ment; un­der the fin­gers of the Wien­er Phil­har­monik­er’s solo harp­ist, the eth­er­e­al sound of this in­stru­ment melds con­sum- mately with the sop­rano’s finely honed vo­cal part, so that the mas­ter­pieces by com­posers such as Schu­mann, Fauré and De­bussy sound as if they had been con­ceived for voice and harp.

The un­ri­valled in­tim­acy of a cham­ber con­cert is con­veyed by the pla­cing of the so­loists and pub­lic with­in touch­ing dis­tance on the stage of the Fest­spiel­haus. This dis­tinctly in­form­al at­mo­sphere is cap­tured by Emmy Award win­ning dir­ect­or Bri­an Large. Dis­creetly high­light­ing the in­ter­pret­at­ive sub­tleties and spon­tan­eous per­son­al­ity of Di­ana Dam­rau, he helps con­firm her status as one of the most ex­cit­ing, ex­press­ive and, above all, nat­ur­al and un­af­fected sop­ranos of our time.

Mu­sic by
Robert Schu­mann
Gab­ri­el Fauré
Claude De­bussy
Richard Strauss

So­loists
Di­ana Dam­rau, sop­rano
Xavi­er de Maistre, harp