★★★★½ Tognetti’s crack band backs classy Russian mistress of the roulades.

City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney
October 8, 2016

How easy it is to take something for granted. Having heard Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva a couple of years ago in Hobart, and followed her subsequent career on record, I’d forgotten just what an impact this crowd-pleasing singer can have on an audience. Possessed of a cast iron coloratura technique, a remarkable purity of voice and a warm, unassuming presence, it was a delight to revisit her special brand of magic in the ideal accoustic of Sydney’s City Recital Hall, especially when sensitively supported as she was here by the Australian Chamber Orchestra under Artistic Director Richard Tognetti.

For the first half Lezhneva focussed on the divine, with contrasting sacred works by Porpora and Handel. The former composer, one of the Baroque’s most famous pedagogues whose pupils included Farinelli and Haydn, is becoming better known these days and a work like his charming solo cantata In Caelo Stelle Clare Fulgescant (May the Bright Stars Shine in the Heavens) should win him more fans. Lezhneva, lovely in pale blue silk with a silver cloud motif, sold both that and Handel’s Salve...