Sunday Times, The, 29 August 2004

Strauss: Capriccio, Edinburgh, 22 August 2004

Usher Hall

In Strauss's Capriccio, the first Countess Madeleine of Soile Isokoski was no less auspicious. The exquisite Finnish soprano has almost the perfect voice for this music, Schwarzkopf-like in its silvery lustre, and when she is firmly inside the skin of the part - her eyes were glued to the score - she will be world-beating. With luxury support from Anne Sofie von Otter's outrageously scene-stealing Clairon, Jonas Kaufmann, the dashing young German tenor of the moment, as the composer Flamand, the veteran Siegfried Vogel as the impresario La Roche and Leopold Hager, the stylish, sympathetic conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, this was as satisfying a Capriccio as one could hope to hear today. It will be broadcast on Radio 3 on September 18