Denyce Graves has to be taken as a complete package: she’s an attractive woman who impresses on stage, and she’s an intelligent artist with a good mezzo-soprano voice. But if you’re only listening to her, as you must on a CD, I find the experience relatively ordinary. The voice is good, but there’s nothing special–no truly distinct quality to it; and the upper fourth is neither easily produced nor attractive. With the greats–Simionato, Horne, Podles, Verrett, Bumbry–you hear two notes and you know who’s singing. Graves is more generic. Here she goes through lots of heavily-emotional scenes, including both of Charlotte’s third-act, angst-ridden arias from Werther, which made me long for Frederica von Stade, Regine Crespin, or Vesselina Kasarova. “O ma lyre immortelle”, certainly one of French opera’s most gorgeous moments, sits too high for Graves, and I raced to my Verrett recording right after hearing her.
On the other hand, “Connais-tu le pays” from Mignon, taken very slowly, is sung with a ravishing legato and beautifully shaded tone. Dalila is one of Graves’ signature roles and she delivers both arias (in reverse order) impressively–but I’ve heard Callas’ recordings of them, so there goes Graves again. A relatively unfamiliar piece from Le Roi d’Ys moves from exclamatory and agitated through mellow and back again, and Graves is superb in it. Another rarity, from Djamileh, is nicely exotic, and the “la-la-las”, though relatively high, are sung softly to marvelous effect. Leonore’s “O mon Fernand” from La favorite is smoothly sung (but I wanted to hear a voice with the juice of Cossotto’s) and the truncated cabaletta is fine–exciting, Bumbry-like in tone and feel. But the final A-natural is not a happy note: Graves’ voice is short for a mezzo (Sapho’s high B-flat lacks depth and stature as well.)
I realize that comparisons are odious, but they’re also unavoidable, and to tell you the truth, even without comparisons, Graves lacks a certain brilliance, a certain pathos, a certain virtuosity, a certain, well, everything that normally is necessary for a place in the operatic firmament. She’s a good singer. The Monte Carlo Orchestra and leadership are exact mirror images of Graves–good, but nothing to tell the grandchildren about. Sound is excellent.
