Leeds Lieder 11th Festival Opening Gala Recital by Schumann, Mahler, Wolf, Wagner, Od (2022/2022), Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, United Kingdom

“Few living singers can navigate this territory better than Dorothea Röschmann, and in this beautifully structured recital such miraculously calibrated shifts of colour came again and again, often within a single breath.” So wrote The Guardian following a Wigmore Hall recital given by the great German soprano. Best known for her Mozart in the great opera houses of the world, and for Austro-German song repertoire, the Grammy Award-winning singer makes her North of England debut in this recital for Leeds Lieder, partnered by Joseph Middleton. The eponymous waif Mignon is brought to life by Hugo Wolf, whose music is tinged with the heady romanticism of Wagner. Wagner’s settings of Mathilde Wesendonck’s poetry is as sumptuous as Schumann’s settings of Maria Stuart are sparse. The centre of the programme looks to folklore for inspiration in a selection of Mahler’s earthy, fantastical, individual and universal Knaben Wunderhorn.