After six years of artistic lockdown in her native Japan soprano Yukie Sato captured hearts and wowed the audience with her Australian debut singing six arias in the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Handel’s House tour.

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Yukie Sato: Handel’s House. Photo © Keith Saunders

The 37-year-old singer, who trained in Tokyo and in Switzerland at the prestigious Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, was unable to expand on her fledgeling international career when COVID-19 struck, and over the past two years other things intervened, including getting married.

After Paul Dyer led the orchestra in the Overture from Rinaldo, concertmaster Shaun Lee-Chen’s violin battling gamely with Sim Walters’ bassoon in some scarifying runs, Sato made her entrance in an ivory silk frock with the stately – and somewhat hushed at times – aria to the angels Tu del Ciel ministro eletto from Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno.

Some of the passages could have been given a little more volume as she called on “you angels, hear my crying”, but it was apparent from the opening notes that here was a soprano with a fluent and true tone across the range.

She called...