Felicity reigned Thursday night at Herbst Theatre as San Francisco Performances presented a concert by two superb musicians, soprano Felicity Lott and pianist Graham Johnson. The program, German in the first half and mainly French in the second, grouped songs according to the lyrics: settings of particular poets. The German songs started with settings by Gustav Mahler of poetry by Rückert, and ended with poems by Goethe set by Hugo Wolf. In between, a group of songs by Robert Schumann used poems by both poets.
Lott's singing of this repertoire caught the mood of each song beautifully. Her attention to verbal and musical text was exemplary, and articulation and intonation were flawless. She could spin out a long phrase with seemingly endless reserves of breath. Her singing of Mahler's Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world) was a pleasure to hear, especially in combination with Johnson's caressing touch at the keyboard and his exquisite shaping of the lines.
In the German songs, Lott's vocal quality was somewhat lacking in color, generally sounding better on o and u sounds — as in her tender singing of Wolf's Anakreons Grab (Anakreon's grave) — and thinner on the e end of the vowel continuum. But her gifts as an actress showed to great advantage in Schumann's lively Singet nicht in Trauertönen (Sing not in mournful tones), as well as in Wolf's So lasst mich scheinen (Let me appear), with its lovely pianissimo ending.
The first half ended with Wolf's setting of Mignon's song, Kennst du das Land (Do you know the land of lemons and oranges and light breezes?). Wolf's setting is dramatic, and Lott gave it the full treatment, ably assisted by Johnson, whose mastery of dynamic range showed in blazing fortissimos that quickly subsided into soft passages and never overpowered the voice.
Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, UC Berkeley faculty emerita, San Francisco State University lecturer emerita, and director emerita of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.