Christine Brewer + Craig Rutenberg

Jordan Hall 

The Celebrity Series of Boston is presenting soprano Christine Brewer, whom we're more familiar with as a soloist in major BSO performances, in a solo recital. An ideal combination of power and delicacy, she's singing mostly lieder and art songs, but she's opening with Gluck's great aria from Alceste, "Divinités du Styx," calling for the gods of the underworld to release her husband from death. Included in a sequence of nostalgic parlor songs is Idabelle Firestone's "If I Could Tell You," the theme song for The Voice of Firestone, a radio (and later, television) show featuring famous opera singers. Pianist Craig Rutenberg accompanies.

Works for soprano and piano by Glück, Richard Strauss, Alan Smith, Britten, Carter, Sidney Homer, Edwin MacArthur, Paul Sargent, Frank Bridge, Idabelle Firestone, and Frank LaForge