https://youtu.be/2j-hpEE6Cds

Birgit Minichmayr / vocals
Bernd Lhotzky / piano & musical director
Mulo Francel / tenor sax, clarinet, double-bass clarinet & sansula
Andreas Hinterseher / accordion, bandoneon, vibrandoneon
Philipp Schiepek / guitar
D.D. Lowka / double bass & percussion

Birgit Minichmayr captures the imagination and holds centre-stage on “As An Unperfect Actor – Nine Sonnets by William Shakespeare”. This won’t come as a surprise to people in the German-speaking world, where the Austrian actor is well-known from countless appearances on TV and a substantial filmography. Perhaps equally unsurprising is the deep experience she can bring to Shakespeare: as an ensemble member of the Burgtheater company in Vienna, she has repeatedly lived out the searingly dramatic lives of the Bard’s characters, notably the daemonic anger of Lady Macbeth, the sadness of Ophelia, and even the uncomfortable truths of the Fool in King Lear.

What might be more of a surprise, however, is the exhilarating musicality she shows on this, her first complete album as a vocalist. One could have predicted the crystal clarity, meaning and intent in her words – the desolation in her voice in “the very birds are mute...the leaves look pale” in Sonnet 97, for example. And yet there is more, much more, not least Minichmayr’s uncannily natural instinct to find artful and felicitous ways to shape musical phrases.

Composer/ pianist Bernd Lhotzky has provided her with a wonderful array of musical contexts. As Minichmayr says: “He got so deep into the meaning of each sonnet, his music made it different every time. And we talked a lot about the colour, the meaning of each poem.” The opening track, “Mistress Mine”, Sonnet 130 is a masterfully deft piece of gender-fluid irony. In the poem, a man is describing possibly the ugliest woman he has ever seen – while also declaring that she is the one he loves. Lhotzky gives us an acerbic version in that most male-led of dances, the tango, complete with bandoneon, in which the words are sung by...a woman. Minichmayr then gives a masterclass in how to end a song as she hits, holds and nails the words “false compareR.......
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