Work: 3 Sonetti del Petrarca: Pace non trovo, S 270

The South African soprano wows the audience with astonishing vocal and dramatic qualities – but do they stretch to a programme of art song?

At the cloakroom, it was already clear that this evening was not going to be standard fare at the Staatsoper. Russian was in the air, and Russians had bought their fair share of the tickets to this completely sold out event: wearing extravagant gowns, sporting elegant hairstyles and reserving bottles of champagne for the interval. There was plenty of Russian fare on the programme too.

Les mélodies et lieder de Liszt sont assez inexplicablement négligés ; mais Cyrille Dubois et Tristan Raës ont superbement fait honneur à ce répertoire lors de la deuxième journée des Lisztomanias.