Janyce Condon, who gave the lunchtime recital at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre on Wednesday, is a young Irish soprano who is currently studying in Barcelona. She opened her short programme with delightful performances of Schumann's Widmung and Strauss's Allerseelen, songs whose poetic sentiments benefited from her forward placing of the mid-tones and her crystal-clear enunciation of the German texts. She was equally convincing in Grieg's I love you, although I'm not sure why she sang it, too, in German.
This bright projection of middle register was an asset in the recitative before Susanna's Deh vieni from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. The aria itself, although sung with glowing tone, needed a little more dallying on those long phrases depicting the character's ardour.
There was plenty of ardour in Song to the Moon from Dvorak's Rusalka. But here, and in Lius Signore ascolta from Puccini's Turandot, there was a noticeable discrepancy between the easy delivery of the cleanly-focused middle register and the pushing of tone onto notes above the stave. And the climax of the Turandot aria would have been more effective if floated rather than squeezed out in full voice.
In Norina's cavatina from Don Pasquale, she negotiated the rapid passages with admirable lightness; but the constant interplay between what was now three different methods of delivery gave the impression that several different singers were tossing the phrases around between them.
Andrew Synnott was a strong partner whose piano accompaniments provided the correct blend of good articulation and weighty tone as required.