It was not surprising to find a full house this evening in the Opernhaus Zürich. Regula Mühlemann’s is Switzerland’s best known soprano these days, and her recital – the program of which has just been released on disc – is a celebration of all things Swiss in the world of artsong. As a matter of fact, the program, as she very charmingly explained this evening, is not 100% Swiss, for Ms. Mühlemann believes that the connection between one’s feeling for his or her own motherland has very much to do with his or her connection to nature – at once a Romantic concept and also a very Swiss one too. And that is why the program begins and ends with Schubert, whose Lieder are the dictionary example of musical depiction of nature. It doesn’t hurt either that he has many songs about lakes, rivers and mountains. It is also most fortunate that Regula Mühlemann has an ideal voice for his songs. A Schubert soprano must have a completely spontaneous high register, the audience shouldn’t even notice that the tessitura is high in a Schubert song. The voice most sound almost pop-like in absolute purity and naturalness. And that’s what we’ve had this evening. It is not a multicolored or complex sound, but it is a voice admirably free and round considered its absolute lightness. I don’t think it would truly work for a Schumann or a Brahms Liederabend, but in its clarity allied with crystalline diction, expert word-pointing and feeling for the text, it hits home in this repertoire.
Im Frühling is a rather tricky song – it is light in atmosphere, but should suggest melancholy at the same time. I particularly enjoy Cheryl Studer’s recording with Irwin Gage, when the voice has a bright, youthful tone, but enough shading to let us know that these waters are deeper than its shiny surface. This evening, it sounded rather pretty in a very stylish and catchy way. Der Knabe’s played to all her strengths, since this singer has a special ability to drain “pretty” music of all schmaltz and show it as freshly and in bright-eyed a manner as one could possibly imagine. Auf der Strom, in which she was brilliantly partnered by Konstantin Timokhine in the natural French horn, demanded far more from her in terms of volume, tessitura and depth. While the freshness of tone and purity of line were undeniable assets, the competition with the horn made her work a bit harder than one would ideally want for the purpose of really hearing the text. As it was, one could call her interpretation rather “operatic” in the way it had more to do with the embodiment rather than the description of the emotions found in the text. In any case, it was an interesting opportunity to see that this Swiss soprano might develop into a more lyric voice in the future. Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, in which Rita Karin Meier played the clarinet with fine dynamic shading, is, on the other hand, a perfect vehicle for Ms. Mühlemann. She sings it as if she had composed it herself, delivering the text with immediacy and offering immaculate articulation in the closing section.
The Swiss items were all of them new to me – and I could guess to many members in the audience. Wilhelm Baumgartner’s Du bist wie eine Blume made for an opportunity for the audience to hear the Heine text in a different (and yet not that different) setting. Richard Flury’s Wandern mit dir is a jewel of a song – 40% Schumann, 60% R. Strauss. The two items sung in Swiss German brought a richer color in the soprano’s middle register, a phenomenon not uncommon when one sings in the language with which he or she grew up. Marguerite Roesgen-Champion’s mélodies are wonderful in atmosphere, especially Cette étoile perdu, and Ms. Mühlemann proved to have what it takes for music composed in French style, an ideal combination of textual spontaneity in the context of legato. The items in romansh, a bit higher in tessitura, showed all the soprano’s money notes. Ms. Mühlemann’s performances were all superior in the theatre in comparison with what one hears in the recording, Live, her voice opened more richly and floated more in softer dynamics.
The program would feature one more Schubert item – La Pastorella al prato, sung with Mozartian poise, well contrasted to Rossini’s La pastorella dell’Alpi, delivered with spirit and very good Italian.
Pianist Tatiana Karusnskaya’s tonal brightness, rhythmic crispness and cleanliness of texture served well Regula Mühlemann’s lightness of tone and instrumental quality. I confess I expected to hear Schuber’s Schweizerlied – proudly featured in Edith Mathis’s volume in the Hyperion complete edition – as an encore, but we got instead an arrangement for all musicians involved in this concert of the final part of the last movement of Mahler’s 4th Symphony.
I HEAR VOICES 
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