Friday December 12, 2003

A year after Channel 4's excellent Operatunity series, this delightful disc brings us up to date on the development of the two winners in that contest of would-be opera-singers, Jane Gilchrist and Denise Leigh.
This is a generous and well-chosen sequence of 14 arias divided between the two, plus three duets, the Countess and Susanna's duet from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, the Evening Hymn from Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel and the duet from Delibes' Lakme made famous by BA's TV advertisement, all beautifully done.
They each do Caro Nome from Verdi's Rigoletto - the opera they appeared in at ENO - with Leigh the brighter and more agile, ending on a wonderfully controlled trill, and Gilchrist the warmer and more freely imaginative.
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