Here is another of those high and highly accomplished sopranos—the Chinese coloratura Dilber and the American Beverly Hoch come to mind as rather comparable—who make a promising, even a brilliant, recital record, and one wonders when they will be heard of next. The others have hardly come my way at all in the few years following their quite warmly welcomed introduction on disc. We must hope this will not be the lot of Tracy Dahl from Winnipeg, a light, bright-toned singer with easy top notes and fluent production, a lively disposition and apparently sound musical discipline. The record was made in 1992, and the previous year her career had progressed as far as an unheralded Metropolitan debut while understudying Adele in Die Fledermaus. She has sung Olympia in San Francisco to the Hoffmann of Domingo, and her ambition at the time of the recording was to sing Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, a part one can imagine her doing very well.
It does seem to be a very light voice indeed, but that was no hindrance to the great Maria Ivogun whose famous solo from Ariadne auf Naxos she sings with charming expression and undaunted skill. The tone is perhaps more like Erna Berger's, and it is difficult for her (and probably unwise to try) to get much colour into the lower third of the voice. The unvaryingly bright sound becomes a little wearing in Blonde's aria, but then she softens to a delightfully flute-like gentleness in ''Vorrei spiegarvi''. Lakme's Bell song is given a nice dreamy touch from time to time, but whether for want of resource or of imagination the echo effects in the vocalise are rather too small-scale. Brilliance of effect is also dimmed by some slow speeds: Olympia's solo for example, sounds like a waltz-song, which it is not. ''A kind of coloratura hits album'' is the singer's quoted description of the record, but it is rather more than that, for the heavenly ''Ruhe sanft'' and ''Vorrei spiegarvi'' hardly fall under such a heading, and there are also the contributions of the orchestra, who open the programme in fine style with the Overture to Candide. Recorded sound is well-balanced, and the booklet well-produced. About the title I say nothing.'