Singer unfazed by NCH switch

IT was an odd decision for the National Concert Hall to schedule its Young Platform series in the John Field Room at the same time as repainting and renovation. The strong smell of the paint was offered as the reason for the relocation of last Thursday night's recital by Giselle Allen from the Field Room into the main auditorium and, fortunately, the young singer seemed in no way incommoded by the change.

Ms Allen, who was born in Belfast, is in her mid-twenties. Last year she won the John McCormack Golden Voice competition in Athlone and also the Clonter Opera Prize, and she has just graduated from the opera school of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Her delivery throughout her short recital (75 minutes, including interval and encore) was confident, her stage manner assured. Her voice is ample and securely extended. At no point did she seem to have the slightest difficulty in riding the open lidded and by no means reticent piano playing of Elizabeth Bicker.

Her performing manner has a consistency which might be taken to suggest an undue concern about getting and holding her listeners' attention. This is something which may well be an asset in terms of career (one can easily imagine her making an impression in the smaller operatic roles that must surely already be coming her way), but it makes for monotony over a whole recital.

Differences of style and delivery were minimal in an evening that ranged over Schumann, Duparc, Strauss, Bridge, Britten and Bernadette Marmion, i.e. over three languages and more than 100 years. The prosaic and angular contributions of the pianist did little to assist the singer in illuminating the music (I don't think I've ever before heard the piano part of Strauss's Morgen quite so insensitively played).

It was in an odd pairing, Duparc's Au pays ou se fait la guerre and, especially, the closing encore, a Scottish arrangement, that the singer seemed to move most successfully to accommodate the distinctive characteristics of the music.