I guess “pretty” wins. Concurrent with her debut as Zerlina in the Met’s new, tedious Don Giovanni, German soprano Mojca Erdmann’s first solo CD has just been released by DG. She’s very pretty and photogenic; in the opera house she sounds shrill and entirely lacks personality. On this CD she merely lacks personality. I don’t enjoy dismissing new singers, but Erdmann is not ready for the manner in which she’s being marketed: she will look great in HD, but she is boring.
The closest she gets to any emotion on this disc is the opening number “Tiger! Wetze nur die Klauen” from Mozart’s Zaide, a rage aria against the man who is imprisoning her; but you need only hear Dessay or Petibon sing it to hear sustained outrage. “Ruhe sanft” is pretty, but the voice is unsupported and the words go for nothing; “Giunse alfin…Deh Vieni” has no allure, just a series of notes (many of them pretty); and “Vedrai carino” lacks warmth. “Ach ich fühl’s” is so slow it is in danger of dropping dead half way through: there’s no grief, just stasis.
In the closing aria, by Ignaz Holzbauer, Erdmann exhibits a bit more fire by putting pressure on her slim, essentially pretty sound, but that doesn’t equal either commitment or drama. Andrea Marcon conducts; La Cetra plays handsomely. Boy, is this a drag. [10/28/2011]
