All singers have their off days; not all are unfortunate enough to have them coincide with a Wigmore Hall recital. No excuses were made for Barbara Bonney, no indisposition announced - and, as ever, the first thing one registered about her voice was its fresh, still-youthful sound. But this was quickly followed by the impression that all was not quite well. Indeed, it wasn't until towards the end of this recital that we caught more than a glimpse of the Bonney's customary polish and confidence in this repertoire.
Whatever was wrong, her opening number was an unforgiving choice in the circumstances; the Masonic ramblings of Mozart's cantata Die ihr des unermesslichen Weltalls Schöpfer ehrt provided no disguise for an unusual unevenness in her tone and the odd slip in tuning. Nor did she appear much more at ease in Schumann's cycle Frauenliebe und -leben. In the faster, flowing numbers, when she settled into using her full voice, she was almost secure. But breath control seemed a problem in her middle range, affecting the range of tonal colours she could achieve as well as appearing to stilt her diction - her vowels could sound tired, tense and distorted at the end of lines, while in full flow they were insufficiently defined. Fortunately Malcolm Martineau was as sensitive as ever in his accompaniment, and played the final postlude especially beautifully.
However, it was a far more grounded Bonney that took the stage for the second half, devoted to songs by Hugo Wolf. These seemed to some extent to free up her voice; she seemed more able to trust her instincts and relax into the songs' expansive flow. Though the previous problems didn't completely disappear, they were all but gone by the time she reached Wolf's Mignon Lieder, which closed the programme. Bonney's is a light voice, but somehow the darker, more sombre tone of these four songs brought her most convincing singing. The final one, Kennst du das Land, was impassioned and expansive, Martineau articulating the mood swings of the piano part vividly and finally thunderously.
It was encouragement enough for her to give us two encores. The Countess's Porgi Amor from The Marriage of Figaro saw Bonney sacrifice intelligibility for beauty of tone; but in Grieg's En Drom her voice soared unencumbered, the way we'd been willing it to all evening.
