Article: Gorchakova's soprano soars on new recording; A born lieder singer Baritone Sanford Sylvan is a singer who is a polar opposite of Gorchakova. Though known for opera roles in "Nixon in China" and "Death of Klinghoffer," Sylvan is a born lieder singer. His nuance and attention to text serve him well in his new disc of songs by Gabriel Faure, "L'Horizon Chimerique," named for a Faure song cycle included on the disc. These are peaceful, contemplative meditations on themes of nature, love and death. Sylvan and pianist David Breitman combine to give them atmospheric, idiomatic performances. The Lydian String Quartet joins the pair for a flowing and captivating performance of "La Bonne Chanson," a cycle of Faure songs set to texts by Paul Verlaine. When you compare her with a singer such as the young Leontyne Price . . . Gorchakova lacks only Price's ability to scale back her sound to the tiniest pianissimo.

Galina Gorchakova already had a successful career in Russia before reforms there allowed her and other Russian singers to fully expand their careers to the West.

That she did, and Gorchakova has become one of the most exciting spinto sopranos singing today.

She has a new disc of Verdi and Tchaikovsky arias on Philips Classics with her familiar collaborators, conductor Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra. Gorchakova has a big, gleaming soprano voice that seems ideal for the Puccini roles of Tosca and Cio-Cio San, some of the Verdi roles and of course the Russian repertory, where she has already made a large impression in "Eugene Onegin" and ...

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