BBC Music Magazine
'... as a 'portrait disc', it gives a good picture of Futral's versatility: the range is from Handel to Carlisle Floyd's 1954 opera Susannah. Indeed, Susannah's aria, full of yearning, is one of the highlights here, but we also get plenty of the lively presence she radiates from the stage... she varies her tone as the situation demands, and is at her purest as Mozart's Constanze... I'm especially drawn to some of her extracts from French opera; and her dazzling coloratura as Lakmé is as compelling as the duskier tone she supplies for Berlioz's Héro. In the duets and ensembles her fellow singers are as supportive as the Philharmonia under Steven White.'
Recorded in Blackheath Halls, London
21-24 June 2002
Producer - Brian Couzens
Sound engineer - Jonathan Cooper
Assistant engineer - Michael Common
1 Handel's Alcina Morgana's Aria 'Come take me...'
2 Donizetti's Linda from Chamonix
Linda's Recitative & Cavatina
'I should have hurried!' - 'My soul is filled...'
3 Rossini's Zelmira Zelmira & Emma's Duet
'What are these tears...'
with Diana Montague, mezzo-soprano,
Lucy Wakeford, harp, Jane Marshall, cor anglais
4 Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio Constanza's Aria
'How I loved him!'
5 Bellini's The Puritans
Quartet for Elvira, Enrichetta, Arturo & Giorgio
'A maiden adorning'
with Diana Montague, mezzo-soprano
PMF Scholars: Peter Wedd, tenor, & Dean Robinson, bass
& Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
6 Berlioz' Beatrice and Benedict Hero's Aria
'He has come back'
7 Mozart's Così fan tutte Fiordiligi & Dorabella's Duet
'See here, Dorabella'
with Diana Montague, mezzo-soprano
8 Gounod's Romeo and Juliet
Juliet's Aria 'Ah! Let me live in this dream'
9 Delibes' Lakmé Lakmé & Gérald's Duet
'Reckless man!' -'He's the god of youth and springtime'
with Barry Banks, tenor (PMF Scholar)
10 Delibes' Lakmé Lakmé's Bell Songs
with Dean Robinson, bass (PMF Scholar)
& Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
11 Floyd's Susannah Susannah's Aria 'Ain't it a pretty night!'
12 Offenbach's Robinson Crusoe Edwige's Waltz-song 'Take me away...' with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
13 Handel's Semele Semele's Aria 'Oh sleep...'
with Elizabeth Kenny, theorbo & David Cohen, cello
Philharmonia Orchestra
Steven White - conductor
