In our sports arenas, Sarah Court would have been hero of the match.
With less than 48 hours' notice, the Raglan mezzo took on Dvorak's Biblical Songs with Bach Musica NZ and gave one of the most memorable performances of this concert season.
The 25-minute cycle of unforced yet fervent psalm settings positively glowed in the original Czech, a bonus from the singer's post-graduate studies at Prague Conservatory.
Bach Musica audiences have enjoyed the mezzo's exquisitely measured Bach on more than one occasion, but tonight there was a new and astonishing viscerality, with Court's vibrant lower register and unimpeachably focused top complemented by some enchanting orchestral hues from Rita Paczian's players.
After interval there was the refreshing rarity of Schubert's A flat major Mass, with the grand choral tradition of Haydn and Mozart filtered through the sensibilities of the man who captured Goethe's Erlking in song.
