Breathe is a new recital CD from Korean soprano Hera Hyesang Park.  It’s a generous 79 minutes of music; most of it with orchestral accompaniment.  There’s one piece for soprano and cello octet and also a few numbers where she’s joined by mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo.

It’s quite varied.  There are a number of pieces by modern and contemporary composers as well as some fairly familiar 19th century fare.  Most of it is lyrical rather than dramatic which suits Park’s really lovely voice.

The album starts with Luke Howard’s While You Live which really sets the tone.  It’s a haunting piece and absolutely gorgeously sung.  There’s more of the same in some extracts from Górecki’s Symphony No.3 and a lovely piece from Cecilia Livingston called Breath Alone which features a second (uncredited) soprano.  Perhaps Park recorded both parts?

The first duet with D’Angelo is the “Evening Prayer” from Hänsel und Gretel and it’s just gorgeous.  They also work well together on the Desdemona/Emilia scene from the Rossini Otello.  There’s the Verdi “Ave Maria” too but the Rossini tops it.  These two voices with their very contrasted tone colours work so well together and really make one ask why the Rossini isn’t done more often.  There’s also that duet from Lakmé which is very nice but doesn’t flatter these two ladies as much as the Rossini and Humperdinck.

There are some more tracks I haven’t described but basically this is an album to wallow in; in the best sense of wallowing.  The Orchestra de Teatro Carlo Felice with Jochen Rieder accompany with properly matching beauty.

The recording is excellent.  It’s going to be released on February 2nd 2024 as a physical CD and digitally.  As far as I can tell the latter means MP3 or CD quality FLAC which is a bit odd as I reviewed off a 96kHz/24bit version.  The only thing that didn’t impress me about this album is the booklet which seems curiously incomplete with no texts and only some of the tracks referenced.  It’s not a huge big deal since the English texts are well articulated and the German/Italian ones will be familiar to most opera lovers.

Catalogue information: Deutsche Grammophon DGG 4864627