Kate Royal is well on her way to establishing herself as one of the finest sopranos to have emerged in Britain for some years. We tend to think of her primarily as a Mozartian: her performances of some of the concert arias at this year's Proms and as Zaide at the Edinburgh festival linger in the memory as being startlingly beautiful; her Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro for Gyndebourne on Tour has been received with enthusiasm. For her recital with pianist Simon Lepper, however, she turned away from Mozart to Brahms, Schumann and Debussy, with equally impressive results.

Royal's voice is, of course, extraordinary in its beauty and amplitude, and as a lieder singer she is frequently non-interventionist, preferring to let sound and melody convey sense and meaning rather than opting for declamatory enunciation of the text. The lurching vocal line of Brahms's Vom Strande, thrillingly projected, told us all we needed to know about the wildness of the heroine's grief at separation from her lover. Subtle dynamics delineated the fluctuating moods of Schumann's Mignon Lieder. The only drawback in her approach is an occasional tendency to drop consonants in order, one suspects, to facilitate the production of that glorious sound.

The high point, however, came with Debussy's Ariettes Oubliées, a setting of erotic poems by Verlaine, dating from 1887. Most interpreters whisper them in veiled tones, though Royal was much more blatant in capturing the sensuality and bitterness of the "fatigue amoureuse" that characterises the cycle as a whole. Lepper, a fine accompanist, was at his best here, too. The songs betray the influence of Tristan und Isolde more than Debussy would ever have admitted, and Lepper's playing underpinned the shimmering chords of the piano writing with a Wagnerian weight and density that seemed shockingly apt throughout.