Christine Brewer’s 2003 Metropolitan Opera debut as Richard Strauss’s Ariadne was of historic magnitude, although both the company and local pundits held to fixed notions of another artist being “the world’s leading Strauss soprano.” Brewer had bided her time starring in summer festivals in Santa Fe and her native St. Louis, busy raising kids and letting her luscious dramatic instrument ripen. She sang gloriously in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Philadelphia Orchestra last week; next season brings her overdue Met return, as Brünnhilde.

England got the message earlier, and an appreciative audience features in this estimable song recital from London’s Wigmore Hall. Engineers have not fully mastered the considerable challenge of recording Brewer’s huge voice alongside piano (played here by the expert Roger Vignoles) in a small venue’s live acoustic. Faults that a larger space might have absorbed are foregrounded, including some top notes considerably spikier than usual for this artist (and less comfortable for the home listener), as well as some slight flatting. Still, in her lower and middle ranges—and often at the top—Brewer makes rich, shining sounds.

The singer’s German in Wagner’s languorous Wesendonck Lieder and Wolf’s “Mignon” songs is fine, but her English is strikingly clearer and more communicative. Britten’s cabaret songs, to piquant Auden texts, are superb, and Brewer proves to be the rare white singer who can pull off spirituals (arranged by John Carter and Hall Johnson) with apt grace and interiority. “Mira,” from Carnival, provides a touching final encore.