Joyce DiDonato, another star in the Peralada firmament

Except for the Empordà summer music calendar with the first concert of the Perelada Festival, which this year, exceptionally, has been brought forward to the first two weeks of July. The program, conceived as a kind of symphony of Twelve movements around the gardens of paradise, has raised the curtain with the debut of the extraordinary mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, accompanied on piano by Craig Terry, in the church of Carme.

With a rather eclectic and heterogeneous program of arias and songs, from Rossini to Debussy, passing through Alma, Mahler and Händel without interruption, the American singer has captivated the Empordà audience from the very first moment: her voice is in top form – clear in timbre, powerful in timbre, powerful in a natural and expressive ease on stage, which provides truthfulness and freshness to each of her performances.

DiDonato began the recital with the impressionistic symbolism of The songs of Bilitis, Debussy's, vaporous and refined, with a subtle and precise melodic line that blended with the ethereal waves of the piano. Then the mezzo, introducing each piece with a pleasant, pidgin Spanish, gave way to five beautiful lieds by Alma Mahler on verses by Rilke and Heine, dense and heartbreaking. The highlight of the first half was the version for voice and piano of the cantata. Arianna in Naxos by Haydn, made up of recitatives and arias, with refined classical writing but with all the force of an operatic scene, which he has executed with a display of theatricality and drama.

After the break, DiDonato gave himself over to the operatic repertoire with four high-level versions of increasing intensity: starting with the aria Shade never was, from the opera To be, by Handel, which he played with an imperturbable pianissimo, continuing with the explosions of bel canto Rossinian of Tancredius and The Italian in Algeria, until closing the evening with the famous Habanera of Carmen, by Bizet, free, sensual and playful.

And, as encores, two climaxes: the surprising tango Lost Birds by Piazzolla, very strummed, and the song And I love a piano, by Irving Berlin, who have dared to conclude an excellent recital with which the Empordà festival adds a new star to its firmament.