Mezzo-Soprano Stotijn Earns Mostly High Marks

By Tim Page
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; C02

Christianne Stotijn puts her deep, attractive mezzo-soprano to the service of a sure and sensitive musicianship. Her Sunday night recital at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, presented by the Vocal Arts Society, had much to recommend it...

songs from Mahler's "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" -- mystical meditations shot through with emotional urgency -- represented Stotijn at her best. "Urlicht,"... was particularly fine: Stotijn managed to reconcile the song's wide-eyed, childlike sense of wonder with its paradoxical world-weariness, and her lower register is especially luscious... Charles Ives was represented ... It is always a courtesy when a visiting artist brings American music to town... One had the sense, rare in Strauss performances, that Stotijn trusted the composer's tunes and felt no need to bury them in extraneous subtleties. Pianist Joseph Breinl -- alert, responsive and good-humored -- was a full partner in the evening's success.