ONE of the strengths of Margaret Collins's singing, at the National Concert Hall's John Field Room last Friday lunchtime, was the consistently pleasant tone throughout her range. Her vibrato was equally consistent, and it did not adapt itself to subtle expression. Yet any consequent limitations were ameliorated by her capacity to float with seeming ease, into the extremities of soprano register.
For this young singer, the programme of 10 songs - by Faure Poulenc, Strauss, Mahler, Mozart, Verdi and Dorothy Price - ranged too widely. While Collins's stage manner suggested a good understanding of the texts, she did not convey the differences between, for example, the posed suavity of Faure's Les berceaux and the refined cabaret style of Poulenc's Les chemins de l'amour. Likewise, for all the beauty of tone in Mahler's Ich atmet einen Linden duft and Strauss's Allerseelen, rhythm and shaping seemed to be determined by melodic line rather than being driven by the text, which is an essential characteristic of these lieder.
The impression that text was being short-changed was reinforced by the lack of translations, or even paraphrases, of the songs. For this there is no excuse.
Trudi Carberry played the piano parts in a way which was always faithful to ensemble, but which was seriously short on character. Both she and Margaret Collins were at their best in the one English-Ianguage song on the programme, Dorothy Price's The house and `the road, and in the final item, Saper vorreste from Verdi's Un ballo in maschera. In the latter they had a zest and an ease which suited both text and music.
