Search - George Frederick Handel, Charles Gounod, Gaetano Donizetti :: Great Arias for Mezzo-Soprano

Nice work from Milena Kitic

Steven A. Peterson | Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL) | 01/11/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Milena Kitic is a mezzo-soprano who shows some good singing in this CD. Her repertoire on the CD runs from Bizet to Bellini, from Handel to Saint-Saens. So, she covers a lot of musical territory. Good choice? Listeners will need to answer that question for themselves, but overall this CD works pretty well.



Some samples of her art:



From Handel's "Giulio Cesare," "Vani sono i lamenti." She shows a lush voice and an agile one here. She moves pretty surely from middle to upper notes. This piece begins with embellishments, followed by a slower, elegiac segment. Then, the cut concludes with up-tempo florid singing. Early on, it seems to me that some of her higher notes have a bit of harshness to them. After that, pretty smoothly sung. All in all, a well sung piece.



From Bellini's version of Romeo and Juliet, "I Capuleti e I Montecchi," "Lieto del dolce incarco. . .Se Romeo t'uccisi si un figlio." She begins with a nice job in a slow portion of the aria, showing some expressiveness in her work. Smoothly sung, displaying an attractive voice. Then, a cabaletta, where the tempo quickens and embellishments become the order of the day. Sometimes, it seems that her embellishments are a bit roughly done. A trill or two would have seemed to me to have added nicely to the cabaletta. Nonetheless, overall this is another sound job of singing.



And now for something completely different (dating myself in the process of using that phrase!). Two pieces from Bizet's "Carmen." The first is the "Habanera." Her French pronunciation is serviceable, but not great. This is a challenging piece at several points, and she seems able to handle those challenges well (outside of a couple points where things seemed a bit off). Nice job. The final example is "Chanson Boheme." Again, well sung. Sometimes, I'm not sure that Carmen is the right role for her, but she does handle this work well anyhow.



So, to sum up, there are some moments that are not perfection, but--overall--Milena Kitic seems to me to be a good mezzo soprano, who has a wide range of characters in her repertoire.

"