The piece that made me fall in love with song: mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston on Schumann's Dichterliebe & recording the songs that make her want to get up in the morning

Helen Charlston (Photo: Julien Gazeau)

On 8 May, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston has a new solo disc out on BIS. It is something of a contrast with her two previous recital discs one of which focused on Purcell and the other on lute song. This time the focus is more Romantic: A Poet's Love, with pianist Sholto Kynoch, features Schumann's Dichterliebe alongside the premiere recording of Héloïse Werner’s Knights Dream. 

It has been a busy and varied period for Helen. We caught her last October singing the title role in Handel's Solomon with John Butt and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment [see my review]. And when we chatted recently, she had had a busy few weeks devoted to Bach's passions (with Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Dresdner Philharmonie) and cantatas (with the Academy of Ancient Music). But in between she created the role of Marianne for Michel van der Aa’s new opera Theory of Flames with Dutch National Opera as part of the annual Opera Forward Festival.

Though in some ways we associate her voice with earlier repertoire, Helen sings a lot of song recitals and the German Romantic repertoire is important to her. She describes Dichterliebe as 'the piece that made me fall in love with song' and the new disc was her first opportunity to record it. She was asked to perform Dichterliebe at the 2023 Oxford Song Festival, so she and Sholto Kynoch built a programme around it, and she adds that she feels lucky to have found that musical relationship with Sholto. This has led to a three-disc project focusing on Schumann's song cycles, and she enjoys the fact that she is starting Schumann with such a big piece from the canon.

Whilst the Schumann disc rather diverges from her earlier recording projects, she wanted the opportunity to record other repertoire, and to demonstrate the songs that make her want to get up in the morning. There is no reason a woman should not sing Dichterliebe after all Schumann dedicated it to the soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, who created roles for Wagner including Senta in Der fliegende Holländer and Venus in Tannhäuser. But Helen chose the song cycle because she liked it and wanted to sing it. It was only after starting to sing it did she think about gender issues, and it still amazes her that after concerts people will come up to her commenting that they did not know mezzo-sopranos sang Dichterliebe. Though both Lotte Lehmann and Suzanne Danco recorded it, the iconic recordings by male singers such as Dietrich Fischer Dieskau rather focus the attention.

She and Sholto chose keys in a way that suited her voice, though for some songs (such as the first four) you need to retain the key relationships. She performs those first four songs in rather low keys which allows for flexibility and soft singing to start the cycle. A few songs you don't want to change: for instance, Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen where the tricky piano writing means it works best in the key Schumann chose.

Helen Charlston & Sholto Kynoch

Heloise Werner's piece, Knight's Dream links to the opening of Dichterliebe. For the cycle, Schumann set poems from Heinrich Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo which consists of a verse Prologue and 65 poems. Schumann originally set 20 poems of which 16 found their way into the final song cycle. Werner set the poetic Prologue, and though Helen and Sholto did not tell her what key they were starting Schumann's cycle in, the key relationship between Werner's piece and the Schumann cycle is perfect. Werner has broken the Prologue into four songs, and it tells its own little story about a knight who falls asleep, and his dream comes to life, thinking about the woman he falls in love with. Then he wakes up and it is all a dream. Helen calls it a nice way to start Dichterliebe as Knight's Dream foreshadows much of the storytelling with its love and longing. Helen describes Knight's Dream as a cohesive set of songs (lasting around 12 minutes) and she feels that it would stand alone will though Helen and Sholto have not done that. Yet.

All the other songs on the disc set poems from Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo which means that the recital has a cohesive poetic language to it and the other songs fill in some of the gaps, whilst also enabling them to explore some of Schumann's contemporaries, notably Carl Loewe, Josephine Lang, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn. Clara Schumann is absent because though she set Heine she never set a poem from Lyrisches Intermezzo.

Helen's next Schumann disc will be based around Frauenliebe und Leben in an arrangement for voice and string quartet, thus enabling her to consider the cycle through a different lens, with the addition of songs by Clara Schumann. The three Schumann discs mean that Helen has been able to spend three years focusing on different repertoire. There is a launch concert for A Poet's Love in May, though before then she and Sholto are performing it at Leeds Song Festival (15 April), then in September they are presenting the programme at the Cowbridge Music Festival with further performances at Skipton Music Society (29 September) and in Birmingham.

Michel van der Aa: Theory Of Flames - Dutch National Opera (Photo: Marco Borgreve)

Her other recent focus has been Michel van der Aa’s opera Theory of Flames which she describes as a feast for the eyes and ears. The subject concerns conspiracy theories and Helen says that it is deeply on the nose. The cast also included Roderick Williams and Mary Bevan (like many of van der Aa's pieces the opera sets an English libretto). This was Helen's first experience of van der Aa's music, and she found that he writes well for the voice. The music was lyrical, free and easy to sing. The opera featured short scenes with lots happening, punctuated by more outward looking big solos, and she had three of these in the opera. They are reviving it at the Bregenz Festival (in 2027) and also in Oslo.

Her concert work features regular performances of Handel's Messiah and Bach's Passions at Easter and Christmas, and she enjoys the ritual of it, the shape that it brings to her year.

One of her roles last year was as the Angel in Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius. She has done the role a few times and loves it. She will be doing it again in the summer, and we will be seeing more of her in the role. When Helen was a BBC New Generation Artists she did more orchestral repertoire, and as the voice developed Elgar was the next stepping stone, and she finds it a real joy to be able to sing it.

Handel: Giulio Cesare - Helen Charlston - Gran Teatro del Liceo, Barcelona (Photo: David Ruanoi)

Also, last year, she sang her first Sesto in Handel's Giulio Cesare at the Liceu in Barcelona in a production directed by Calixto Bieito which was originally given at Dutch National Opera. It was a role she really enjoyed and will appear in again. She also very much enjoyed singing at the Liceu which she describes as a wonderful opera house, great for Baroque music.

This summer is her final year as artistic advisor for the York Early Music Festival and she will be there for the whole festival (3-11 July 2026). She is giving a concert, A Gentle Air, with tenor Paul Agnew and lutenist Sergio Bucheli focusing on French secular vocal music of the 17th century. Having been associated with the festival for four years it is very much like performing music at home. Also coming up in June she will be performing Britten's Phaedra with Britten Sinfonia at the Aldeburgh Festival on 18 June in a programme that includes music from Charpentier's Médée and Haydn's Arianna a Naxos. 

Looking even further ahead, she is currently learning Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin, her next big song cycle, with performances planned for the 2027/28 season. She finds the challenge ex citing, as it is such a brilliant cycle and she is inspired by the music and wants to perform and share it. There are other plans as well, of course, and has a lot of roles in the practice room that may come out in time. She is willing to be flexible, and her first priority is the breadth of experience of music making. She tries to keep her concert, stage and recital work in balance so that she has all the different musical interactions during the year. In each, she is a different cog in a different wheel, and she like slotting into different situations. It is also rewarding to have a variety of experiences on the go at the same time.

She is looking at Mozart and Richard Strauss with Mozart roles like Idamante in Idomeneo, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte and Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito, and Richard Strauss's Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. Roles that she describes as amazing characters and good for the voice.

In regard to casting she comments that you need someone that wants to sing a particular role. And that if a singer likes the music they will probably end up singing it; that if you need to sing it you'll find a way. She finds the possibility of trying things out to be exciting, balancing what the voice wants to do, what she wants to do and what is out there! One plan is to sing more Mahler, and she will be doing Symphony No. 3 in Finland in 2027.

She smilingly admits that the list of works she wishes to do is a lot longer, and hopefully she has lots of time, after all things don't have to happen next year.

Helen Charlston & Sholto Kynoch's A Poet's Love is released on BIS records on 8 May - further details. 

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