“Is she truly trying to live up to her sobriquet as ‘the Russian Maria Callas’ by taking on two of the major bel canto roles associated with her predecessor? Can her voice really be as fantastic as the worshipful reviews that have described it as “dark gold on red velvet’, ‘miraculous,’ ‘lustrous’ — fantastic enough to justify the debut of her latest CD, ‘Russian Album’ at No. 8 on the German pop charts?”