ORFEO International – Reviews
Important Releases Briefly Introduced
May 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 702 061 B
Candour and artistic curiosity 
Diana Damraucharacterize the art of Diana Damrau. There are few other lyric coloratura sopranos of recent years who have enjoyed such meteoric careers and who continue to scale new peaks of achievement. Following early engagements in Würzburg, Mannheim and Frankfurt, Diana Damrau soon earned an outstanding reputation in the major European opera houses for standing in at the last minute for ailing colleagues, most notably as the Queen of Night and as Zerbinetta. Other, scheduled appearances have included the opening production of the 2004/5 season at La Scala, Milan, under Riccardo Muti and her acclaimed début at the New York Met at the start of the 2005/6 season. Between these appearances, Diana Damrau has also found time to give regular song recitals, either on her own or with other artists. Her accompanist on these occasions has always been Stephan Matthias Lademann.
Diana Damrau 
Diana Damrau
Foto: Tanja Niemannhad already appeared at the Salzburg Festival as the Queen of Night in Die Zauberflote and as both Blonde and Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail when, in 2005, she gave her first song recital at the festival, presenting a completely different aspect of her art with a selection of songs dating for the most part from the period of Jugendstil and Late Romanticism. A live recording of this recital is now available as part of the „Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2006“ series of recordings.
It is clear from Berg’s Seven Early Songs and Mahler’s Das himmlische Leben but above all from Alexander Zemlinsky’ s rarely heard Walzergesänge op. 6 that in terms of the clarity and brilliance of her tone Diana Damrau hails from the same distinguished tradition as the great German-language lieder singers of the past, and the same is true of her diction and her ability to colour the text. But it is above all the characteristic smile in her voice – a quality that was long thought to have been lost from the world of singing – that captivates the listener from the outset. And yet, in spite of this, Diana Damrau is also capable of lending a contemplative cast to songs such as Hugo Wolf s Lebe wohl.
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