Prom 66: Bach St. Matthew Passion (9/2014)

"...Magdalena Kozena... was truly wonderful as the alto soloist. Her voice has a slight, interesting edge to it which I found very appealing and which made the quieter numbers profoundly expressive. From her first aria, Buss' und Reu' she displayed a fabulous technique, singing the passagework smoothly and evenly (even though in that first aria she was giving Mark Padmore a massage). Here, and elsewhere, the music was always very light on its feet. Erbarme dich was thankfully a quiet pause, with Kozena stationary on stage (for once) and joined by the fiddle player for a sublime duet. However during Kozena's intensely intent account of Konnen Tranen meiner Wangen, Mark Padmore was distractingly in agony (he'd just been scourged) the whole time, and Kozena seemed to be cleaning his back. The problem for me was that, here and elsewhere, the music is not a dramatic reaction to the events just proceeding but a personal contemplation, albeit a highly emotional one. By the time we reached Sehet! Sehet! Jesus hat die Hand I was growing tired of Kozena's emotionalism and here she ran around hugging everyone. But if you closed your eyes, the aria was musically sublime. "

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