After a long walk on this promise-of-summer day, I came home to our cool cavern of an apartment with just time enough to spare for a good listen. What to pick? As so often when I go to select something, the CD chooses itself. Today the Belgian soprano Suzanne Danco's recording of Debussy's Ariettes Oubliees was so transporting. (Photo above: Danco with conductor Pierre Monteux),
The songs, set to poems by Paul Verlaine, are intimate and redolent of longing and the perfume of lost romance. Even the one joyous song, 'Chevaux de bois' - about chasing the horses on a merry-go-round - turns pensive. Danco's voice has a tender fragility and beauteous demi-tints which make her interpretation so engrossing.
The Rapture is what I call an elusive vocal quality which can't truly be defined; it's a shining feeling underscored with sensuousness or passion that is somehow contained. It doesn't pour out of the singer on a grand scale but instead seeps mysteriously into the tone colours as the voice responds to the text. Some singers have it, some don't...some can only find it it certain music, others tend to bring it to everything they sing. Suzanne Danco certainly has it for these Debussy songs: a wonderful interlude on a beautiful day.
And now, off to the ballet.
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