Concert review: Anne Sofie von Otter, Town Hall Concert Chamber

Swedish mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter. Photo / Supplied

A singer of songs is essentially a teller of tales and Anne Sofie von Otter did so with consummate artistry in her Wednesday recital.

The Swedish mezzo opened with a stylish trip around Scandinavia. Nielsen's Sommersang caught an idyllic Danish summer with a bittersweet sting in its final line; she and pianist Bengt Forsberg made a regular Erlking out of Sibelius's Under Strandens Granar and were delightfully arch in the skittish Vilse.

Her wistful I Lonnens Skymning marked it as her favourite of three Stenhammar songs, while Grieg's well-known Varen (Spring) delivered the purest sentiment with breath control and tone to match.

In a bracket of German Lieder, Liszt's Es muss ein wunderbares sein was disarmingly intimate, with some lustrous lower register, and we met three memorable gypsies, one by one, in Liszt's dramatic Die Drei Zigeuner.

Early on, von Otter told us they were enjoying New Zealand as it was "green and not too hot".

As the evening progressed, her introductions livened, expressing serious doubts that a flock of cuckoos in a Canteloube song could ever sound like 500 trumpets and playfully taking Forsberg to task for his soft-spoken, rambling introductions.

Four of Canteloube's Auvergne songs were gloriously sung, but suffered through the lack of an orchestral backing - how one felt for Forsberg trying to catch the evocative woodwind solos of La Delaissado, especially with an instrument that had already sabotaged his Sibelius Romance.

The highlight of a folksy Percy Grainger set was his skilful canter through Handel in the Strand.

Three Korngold songs, immaculately groomed, attained the magical in the Straussian Gluckwunsch and Kurt Weill was best served in a Speak Low, presented as a slinky lied noir with a beguine beat.

For the first encore, von Otter gave us Grieg; a rapturous Jeg elsker dig (I Love Thee), to prove how much she loved us.

For the second, using her best Kath 'n' Kim vowels to remember how orstrahyun audiences had pestered her for ABBA, she transported us back to the Land of the Midnight Sun with the fragile waltz of Benny Andersson's Light as a Summer Butterfly.

- Herald online