Karita Mattila review – fabulous and fearlessly direct singing

Wigmore Hall, London
The Finnish soprano was formidable in a recital that took in Brahms, Wagner and Berg

Karita Mattila swept on to the Wigmore Hall platform and scooped the audience into the palm of her hand for two hours. In part, that’s because the soprano is such a fabulous and fearlessly direct stage performer, but also well up for a bit of diva parody in three superb encores by Hollaender, Merikanto and Strauss. Fundamentally, though, it’s about the rich nuance of her vocal sound, which still ranges from the full-on operatic to the intimate, all delivered with a laser-sharp awareness of both text and context.

Starting with Brahms’s Zigeunerlieder, Mattila was boldly full-blooded from the word go, with no trace of vibrato, though there was just the occasional tonal scoop early on. But she expertly narrowed the focus in the most inward of the songs, and for the rest of the evening she was in her element across the full range of the voice.

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