Susan Graham is tired, it would seem, of playing men. The American mezzo's reputation rests primarily on trouser roles such as Cherubino or Octavian, and on baroque repertory originally written for castrati. Her latest recital, however, closed with Sexy Lady, specifically written for her by Ben Moore, in which she tells us, tongue in cheek, that she's had a bit too much of wearing pants and would really like to play a femme fatale. Before that came a series of portraits of what Graham, joking with the audience, called "good girls and bad girls". Given that the "good girls" include the Virgin Mary and the "bad girls" Lady Macbeth, the range she set herself was wide, to put it mildly.

Not all of it worked. Purcell's The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation was graciously accurate but didn't fully capture Mary's anxieties about her son. Berlioz's La Mort d'Ophélie could have been more vivid. Joseph Horovitz's Lady Macbeth, condensing several speeches from the play into a declamatory scena, was curiously lacking in tension. All three are reined-in works, and Graham is actually at her best in music that permits her slightly grander, more extrovert vocal gestures.

A group of songs inspired by Mignon, Goethe's psychologically damaged androgyne, lifted the evening to an altogether different plane. Placing unfamiliar items alongside well-known settings, Graham let the voice out more, and proved so overwhelming in Liszt's version of Kennst du das Land that there was a burst of spontaneous applause. She has always been a fine interpreter of French songs and beautifully captured the melancholy wit of Poulenc's Fiançailles Pour Rire before getting very provocative indeed with Messager's J'ai Deux Amants. Pianist Malcolm Martineau matched her every shift of mood and style with playing of wonderful refinement and dexterity.