Hendricks at the heart of opera

Barbara Hendricks performs Arias from the greats, including Tchaikovsky, Bizet and Strauss

Composer: Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Strauss et al.
Repertoire: Au coeur de l’opera
Artists: Barbara Hendricks
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Opera
Label: EMI Classics 557 6462

Although she’s the darling of the American and German opera houses, soprano Barbara Hendricks’s career has, shamefully, not flourished here. So thank goodness for recordings like this one which show us an artist at the peak of her powers. She brings her rich, creamy tone to core lyric repertoire, from Tatanya’s letter scene in Eugene Onegin to the final moments of Strauss’s Capriccio. Sometimes the drama lacks va-va-voom, but the sound is dreamy.