Karita Mattila at Carnegie Hall

photo from NPR.org


















I attended Karita Mattila's recital with Martin Katz at Carnegie Hall on Saturday night with Noah, Zach, Chelsea (her first time at Carnegie Hall!).  This picture doesn't do Karita's dress proper justice.  From our heavenly seats in the front balcony, Karita looked like a full length disco ball, or a full length mirror as Chelsea said.  Either way,  it knocked us out of our seats.  What a dress!   It may be my favorite recital dress ever.   For the second act, she changed to a another form fitting dress, this time purple.  Both dresses:  va va va voom and then some.   

To me the program was pretty sexy too.   Karita's Poulenc and Debussy were sensuous and very evocative.    "Hotel" by Poulenc made me want to take up smoking immediately and "Voyage a Paris" made me long to be in Paris once again.     Karita's soprano is warm and sumptuous and only until she travels into her higher octave is their brightness. 

Karita, a Finnish soprano, regularly promotes Finnish composers.  She took the opportunity this evening to sing Aulis Sallinen's "Four Dream Songs."    They were beautiful but the imagery was fairly dark.    She finished the program with Joseph Marx - "Selige Nacht" was beyond seductive. 

Karita performed "I Could Have Danced All Night" as her encore - performed means sang and DANCED  - she was joyfully all over that stage.   Zach said, "Karita Mattila managed to turn her encore of 'I Could Have Danced All Night' into 3 acts with 2 intermissions."   It seems that it's a typical encore piece but this was one of the most enjoyable renditions I've encountered. 
POULENC Banalités

·· Chanson d'Orkenise
·· Hôtel
·· Fagnes de Wallonie
·· Voyage à Paris
·· Sanglots

DEBUSSY Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire
·· Le balcon
·· Harmonie du soir
·· Le jet d’eau
·· Recueillement
·· La mort des amants

AULIS SALLINEN Four Dream Songs, Op. 30
·· Man made from sleep
·· Cradle Song for a dead horseman
·· Three dreams, each within each
·· There is no stream

MARX "Nocturne"
MARX "Waldseligkeit"
MARX "Selige Nacht"
MARX "Valse de Chopin"
MARX "Hat Dich die Liebe berührt"

Encore: 
LERNER & LOWE'S "I Could Have Danced All Night"
"My Gal Is So Pretty" (Finnish folk song)

Photo by Chelsea