'A Latvian soprano who has dazzled audiences in New York and Vienna
with her impassioned performance of Donna Anna,’ proclaims the jewel
case. Reviews I’ve checked out were more mixed. Still, Marina Rebeka
makes a fine showing in Anna’s ‘Non mi dir’, with strong, bright, evenly
produced tone, a shapely sense of line and precise coloratura. A touch
more warmth (we surely have to believe that Anna’s avowal of love to
Ottavio is genuine) and closer engagement with the text would have made
her performance even better.
With the hint of spinto steel in her voice, it’s a shame
that Rebeka doesn’t include Anna’s ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ here, opting
instead for Elvira’s ‘Mi tradì’, sung firmly enough, if rather
carefully, without any special illumination. In the two Queen of the
Night arias she unleashes spitfire coloratura to bring the house down.
Konstanze’s gargantuan showstopper ‘Martern aller Arten’ would send any
Pasha packing. This is another performance of fierce determination that
lacks a tempering tenderness and pathos. Here and elsewhere the
orchestral contribution is perfectly competent but rather wanting in
temperament.
The hard glare that can afflict Rebeka’s top notes, useful in
expressions of vengeance and defiance, is less desirable in Pamina’s
aria, taken at a very deliberate, old-fashioned tempo. This is surely
not her part. Despite an occasional tendency to sing on the flat side of
the note, the Countess’s arias suit Rebeka much better. She finds the
right inwardness for ‘Porgi amor’ and builds to a ringing, affirmative
climax in ‘Dove sono’. Best of all is her Elettra in Idomeneo,
sung with an ideal baleful, impassioned grandeur. If Rebeka doesn’t
quite succeed in delivering all of ‘this gorgeous music to the
listener’s heart’, as she puts it in the booklet, her debut recital
announces a soprano of impressive vocal accomplishment and, at her best,
dramatic flair. (Richard Wigmore / Gramophone)
