Another singer, it appears, for the Pantheon. All right, let’s not be rash. Pantheon Grade 3 let’s cautiously allow her for the time being. But, on this showing, she’s in.

Elina Garanca is a mezzo-soprano from Latvia, trained by (among others) the affectionately remembered Virginia Zeani, already some six years into a career which has taken her to Salzburg, Vienna and Paris, with a rich promise of engagements ahead. Known to us previously as the excellent Adalgisa to Gruberová’s Norma (Nightingale, 11/05), she is a highly gifted and accomplished singer and here, after all, is tried in the fire of Mozart, which reveals all and spares nothing.

Her voice is warm and ample, its quality enriched in the lower register but still full-bodied, pure and resonant on the top B flats. Her legato and fluency are alike well schooled, her intervals exceptionally clean and her feeling for light-and-shade at any rate aware that it exists. Room for developments lies, I would say, principally in this area: she is not inexpressive but there is more to be made of the emotions and the part words play in their communication.

The selection of arias, concert and operatic, makes for a satisfying programme. Much is on the grand scale: injured women cry out against malign fate and determine to confront it. This includes, we note, both the mezzo and soprano leads in Così fan tutte: essentially sung in the same voice (she does not audibly ‘turn soprano’ for ‘Come scoglio’) and, one might well conclude, by the same character. The lighter, more intimate tone used in Ch’io mi scordi di te is welcome, and welcome too are some lesser known concert arias, most of all Ah, non lasciarmi, which has a melody almost as lovely as the now-famous ‘Ruhe sanft’ from Zaide. The longest is the profoundly set Misero me!, where the intricacies of the implied dramatic situation form something of a barrier, but where the sustained powers of the music and the singer impress deeply.

Thinking of comparisons, I would say she is richer and warmer than Berganza, less imaginative and personally involved than Bartoli, but also free of mannerisms. With lively accompaniment by the Salzburg Camerata, this is an exceptionally successful debut recital.