Karine Deshayes, At Last

French Romantic Cantatas, K. Deshayes, Opera Fuoco, D. Stern (Zig Zag, 2014)

Charles T. Downey, Mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes at the Kennedy Center
Washington Post, February 5

Pierre Bernac, the singer and authority on the French “mélodie,” summed up this late Romantic song genre as “the art of suggestion,” characterized by its “subtle poetic climate, intellectual refinement, and controlled profundity.” Rarely does one hear this delicate, pastel-hued music performed as authoritatively as on the Washington debut recital by French mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes, presented by Vocal Arts D.C. at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Tuesday evening.

An entire program of languorous French songs, ranging from Hector Berlioz to Henri Duparc, might seem like too much of a good thing. With the fine qualities of Deshayes’s singing... [Continue reading]

Karine Deshayes, mezzo-soprano
Carrie-Ann Matheson, piano
Vocal Arts D.C.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater