Olga Peretyatko: Russian Light CD review – a century of opera classics

Soprano Olga Peretyatko is in demand for opera roles requiring a voice that’s endlessly flexible and light on its feet. Those are mainly Italian, but there are plenty of them in her native Russian repertoire, too. The all-Russian programme here spans just over a century, from Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila to Shostakovich’s Moscow, Cheryomushki. Her arias from these are impeccably done, but while there are no downright showstoppers, it’s during the tracks in between that she shines, supported solidly by the Ural Philharmonic under Dmitry Liss. The sinuous lines of the Hymn to the Sun from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Golden Cockerel are cleanly yet sensuously done, with a whiff of spice and incense about them, and the aria for Stravinsky’s The Nightingale chirrups and cajoles. Volkhova’s Lullaby from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko has both poise and weight, and her Rachmaninov songs combine a gleaming timbre with an idiomatic melancholy.