The Russian soprano Galina Gorchakova made her Irish debut in the National Symphony Orchestra's Golden Jubilee concert in 1998. Her Dublin recital debut was scheduled for the following year, but had to be postponed, and finally took place as part of the NCH/The Irish Times Celebrity Concert Series last Saturday.
The programme of songs by Glinka, Dargomizhsky, Cui, Balakirev and Rachmaninov and arias by Tchaikovsky, Cilea and Puccini, was, as things turned out, rather more varied than the singing. Gorchakova's is a large and vibrant voice, which she tends to use with a rather generalised emotionality.
Although she doesn't move a great deal on stage, her acting of each song gave the impression of deep consideration, a consideration that was sometimes more apparent to the eye than to the ear. The sense of musical characterisation, especially in the less familiar Russian fare of the first half, seemed always that bit more vivid when Iain Burnside's piano took flight independently of the singer.
None of this is intended to suggest that Gorchakova was ever less than vocally commanding. But it was in the final set of Italian arias - one by Cilea, "Io son l'umile ancilla" from Adriana Lecouvreur, two by Puccini, "In quelle trine morbide" and "Sola, perduta, abbandonata", both from Manon Lescaut - that delivery and material seemed most persuasively at one. The added warmth of the applause at this point suggested that the audience appreciated the shift in quality, however late in the evening it had come.
