Sharon Carty, mezzo soprano

While it sleeted, snowed and froze outside the Hugh Lane Gallery last Sunday, inside it was all springtime and nature reawakened in the first of four groups of Schubert songs performed by Irish mezzo Sharon Carty. Having established herself in Europe — notably Germany — Carty retains the warm, supple lucidity that has served her so well in roles such as Purcell’s Dido and Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro. Thus the backdrop of springtime in Ganymed, Viola and Nachtviolen was youthful and charming. There was also a beautiful, almost instrumental, quality to her long fading notes on the last syllable of each verse in Des Fischers Liebesglueck. Carty delivered a quiet but captivating introspection in Schubert’s intimate settings of Goethe such as Heiss mich nicht redden (Don’t ask me to speak) and Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt (Only one who knows longing). She was matched at every inflection by her partner at the piano, Jonathan Ware. She finished with winsome accounts of favourites — Du bist die Ruh and An die Musik. Carty is back in Dublin next month for Bach’s St Matthew Passion (NCH, April 3) and for Handel in Christ Church Cathedral (April 10).