William Dart: Singing to move body and soul

A few years ago, Inessa Galante stated that she wanted to "make the audience feel the music, not only through their mind, heart and soul, but also through their stomach, feet and sex organs".

At the time, such ambitions seemed bold, bordering on reckless, especially in a live concert venue, although if any of today's singers is going to exert such a full-body effect on audiences, then it may well be this Latvian soprano.

Considering that Galante has only recently made some key debuts - including a triumphant account of the title role in the Scottish Opera's Aida three weeks ago - she's hardly a new diva on the block. During the 1980s she worked with the Kirov and Bolshoi companies in Russia and it was only in 1991 that she was able to break into the wider European scene.

There have been recordings but, in general, they've been piecemeal, the most interesting being a number of collections taken from Latvian radio archives, including some lovely Rachmaninov performances dating from 1986.

The singer's new CD, Verdi Galante, is fascinating, with its sharp focus on the later operas of the Italian composer. It sets off with his 1859 Masked Ball (where a cor anglais sets the tone for a heartrending "Ma dall arido stelo divulsa") and runs through to the 1893 Falstaff (with a rather serieuse account of Nannetta's Fairy Queen aria that is definitely not helped by the stolid contribution of the Choir of the Stockholm School of Economics).

Galante's forte is full-on emotion and Verdi gives her the perfect templates in thrilling arias like Pace, Pace, mio Dio! and Ritorna vincitor, while her soul-searching in Tu che le vanita from Don Carlo doesn't relinquish its grip on the listener till the last note has faded away.

My only qualms are with an over-dependence on portamenti (especially in an otherwise beautifully sustained Salce, Salce) and the occasional inability to come up with what Verdi really needs - the sort of seamless legato that Leontyne Price used to deliver so effortlessly.

The American soprano was also more fortunate in her supporting musicians; the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra behind Galante, under the baton of Terje Mikkelsen, sometimes reduce accompaniments to squallish thunder.

* Verdi Galante (Campion RRCD 1349, through Ode Records)