Though Borodina has been a favourite singer in the UK for more than five years and has an impressive list of recordings to her credit, this is her first operatic recital disc. Her programme shows her in a wide range of roles, periods and styles, classical, florid, romantic, and even venturing into the soprano repertoire. The voice has expanded somewhat since we first knew her, and as yet at no great cost to its firmness and purity. The timbre, while not positively luscious in its richness, is capable of warmth, and she has such fine control over it that quite a small increase or diminution of power will prove an effective means of expression. Yet it is in expressiveness that her limitations are most evident.
In this recital she opens with Cinderella’s “Nacqui all’affanno”. We have heard this sung recently, and with more imagination, by Vesselina Kasarova (RCA, 2/97): she, for instance, captures recollected sorrow in her way of singing the first lines, and then her “la sorte mia cangio” lights up with wonder, her “no nos” are solicitously inflected, and all of that second section is addressed, to the shameful, generously forgiven, family. Set Borodina and Kasarova together and try Conchita Supervia, from 1927 (Testament, 12/92), and both are like shadows in a sunshine day; but Kasarova does live the part, whereas (essentially) Borodina only sings it. The singing, too, comes into question if one turns to a further comparison, this time with the distinguished Russian mezzo of an earlier generation, Zara Dolukhanova. Her recitals on Preiser or Russian Disc (3/96) include several of the arias sung by Borodina, the Semiramide in particular showing how florid passages can be sung with a scrupulous preservation of legato.
Borodina herself is not entirely negligent in this respect, comparing well (for instance) with Cecilia Bartoli. And if Rossini does not elicit much in the way of expression, Tchaikovsky does, particularly in Joan of Arc’s farewell to her native countryside. She does well with Dido’s lament, taken very slowly; well, too, with the solos of Dalila. Unexpectedly, I was most taken with the “Voce di donna” from La Gioconda, especially with the sweetness at the gift of the rosary but also in the warmth of feeling and care for nuance throughout. Marguerite, in Berlioz, needs a more intense concentration of grief and passion; and Lisa’s aria, well sung as it is, forfeits something of the girl’s essential character with this infusion of the more severe, less vulnerable, mezzo quality.
In sum: a notable recital that comes within range of a more glowing description yet does not quite achieve the breakthrough.'