The wonder is not that Alice Coote has poached what's usually seen as the male preserve of Schubert's Winterreise . It's that, given the greatness of that song-cycle, so few female singers have actually taken it on. Why should a journey through the darkness of the soul be the preserve of men? Coote, a mezzo soprano with glint and power and a sometimes super-charged lower register, is engaged and engaging, drawing you into her numbed and chilling journey of tears and loss, fear, hope and resignation. Her pianist, Julius Drake, is at times more angular, even bumpy, than the music seems to require.
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