Sutherland, Sills, Callas, Caballe and more recently Kathleen Battle, Barbara Hendricks and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa have all recorded recitals of French arias, in which at least one piece overlaps with this new recital from Sumi Jo. Her technique is sound, the diction usually clear; there are moments in each selection where she can be compared favourably with any of the great names listed. What’s lacking is differentiation. She is not helped by the decision to have the Jewel Song from Faust on its own – the preceding Ballade of the King of Thule would have given her a chance to outline some character. The same goes for the Manon Gavotte – one wants to hear ‘Je marche sur tous les chemins’ before it.
That she is capable of distinct characterization is nicely demonstrated when she moves from Ophelia’s Mad Scene to Louise on her balcony. Here are two separate characters, the fragility of Thomas’s Ophelia distinct from the more languorous midinette happy in her romance. This is the aria they’ve all done, and a run-through of various versions of ‘Depuis le jour’ finds most of the singers of the past showing up their most famous weaknesses, Callas’s wobble insupportable, Sutherland’s words cloudy, Caballe impossibly slow but with the most ravishing pianissimo at ‘Ah je suis heureuse’.
Sumi Jo doesn’t sparkle quite as I’d expected in the polonaise from Mignon, but in Mireille’s swallow aria things move along a bit faster. Once she gets to the Meyerbeer and Offenbach pieces, the comparison has to be with Sutherland. Sumi Jo cannot approach the brilliant attack Dame Joan had with the duel with two flutes in the extract from L’etoile du nord and in ‘O beau pays’ from Les Huguenots: though everything is dealt with efficiently the sense of authority isn’t as regal as I’d like.
In sum, a good try, but this doesn’t reach the very high standard Sumi Jo has already set with her previous French recital for Decca (‘Carnaval!’, 9/94).'