http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/arts/music/anna-lucia-richter-sings-hugo-wolfs-lieder.html 2014-10-05 23:58:10 Anna Lucia Richter Sings Hugo Wolf’s Lieder A 24-year-old German soprano who has been making waves across Europe presented at all-Hugo Wolf evening at the Park Avenue Armory. === Since its inauguration as a performance space last year, the Board of Officers Room in the On Thursday evening, it was the turn of Ms. Richter’s voice has the clarity and sparkle you’d expect of a young singer, but also a good deal of warmth and focus. The acoustics of the smooth-paneled room with its bronze chain curtains are not ideal for high voices, and after a few penetrating top notes turned caustic, she seemed to work hard to rein in the firepower she evidently commands. What Ms. Richter possesses in spades are charm and charisma. She’s an animated actress with a knack for drawing the audience in as if to share a bit of juicy gossip as in “Begegnung” (“Encounter”) or in the comically dramatic “Storchenbotschaft” (“Stork’s Message”), her encore. Given her talent for bringing to life different characters and moments of direct speech in a poem, it was frustrating that much of the program was given over to songs that were placid, wistful and occasionally outright insipid. While I admired Ms. Richter’s artfully naïve rendition of “Schlafendes Jesuskind” (“Sleeping Christ child”) and Mr. Huber’s attentiveness to the weird harmonies underlying “Auf ein altes Bild” (“On gazing at an old picture”), I couldn’t muster more than an academic interest in the woolly piety these songs expressed. “Wo find’ ich Trost” (“Where shall I find solace”), another selection from Wolf’s religious songs, was a different story. In the dramatic intensity and psychological and vocal nuances Ms. Richter brought to this study of a guilt-tormented soul at night, there were bright flashes of a promising operatic talent in the making.