Vocal Arts DC presented the countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen and pianist John Churchwell Thursday night in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theatre, in a recital built around selections from Cohen’s debut album, “Uncharted.”

The album title promised a foray into repertoire beyond the countertenor’s usual domains, which Cohen has inhabited very successfully in the years since he won the Met Council Auditions in 2017. 

The size, presence, and consistency of his voice has earned him a lasting place in the exclusive club of countertenors who can bring off Handel in the biggest houses; he has amassed an impressive record on this front in recent years (plus a healthy dose of large-scale contemporary works as well). 

Yet Thursday’s recital presented a mixed picture of how well those strengths translate to further flung repertoire and more intimate settings.

The program opened with an ambitious selection of three songs by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, on texts by Alfred Kerr and Ernst Lothar. Cohen clearly relished the opportunity to luxuriate in these florid late romantic pieces, lavishing attention on precise dynamics and phrasing that called attention to the swell of Korngold’s lines. But this soon devolved into a sense of sameness, with an intense polish in the moment that failed to bring broader insight or direction to these works.

On a more basic level, Cohen’s sound just seemed mismatched for the material. On paper, the weight and urgency in his voice seem well-suited to these songs’ demands, but notes of brilliance or sweetness apparent at first dissipated as he pushed into more strident fortes. For Korngold’s surging vocal writing to work, those peaks must deliver pleasure; here Cohen’s muscular but colorless climaxes grew tiring on the ear.

Two American songs, H. Leslie Adams’ setting of Langston Hughes’ “Prayer” and Florence Price’s “Sunset” on a text by Odessa P. Elder, let Cohen relax a bit. Hushed, plainspoken phrases in “Prayer” were able to recapture the more appealing side of his sound, while Price’s song brimmed with an exuberant appeal, despite some discordant punchiness at the ends of several lines. 

The sole nod to Cohen’s signature repertoire on the main program, “O Lord Whose Mercies Numberless” from Handel’s Saul, began with overwrought phrasing and some patchy intonation, though Cohen brought the piece to an elegant finish.

“Unbewegte laue Luft” was the standout of a set of German songs, the hushed first stanza offering some of Cohen’s most successful sustained piano singing of the evening, before launching into controlled passion in one of two notable randy Brahms offerings. The other, “In meiner Nächte Sehnen,” was less convincing, Cohen pushing too hard to bring across the ardent material, while a reading of Clara Schumann’s “Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen” was largely effective.

Cohen closed the first half with two songs in Hebrew, Max Janowski’s setting of the prayer “Avinu Malkenu” and a fascinating setting of the Kaddish by Maurice Ravel. An experienced cantor, Cohen vividly rendered the Hebrew text and found an affecting balance in each between prayerful elements and more direct emotional connection.

The second half opened with Oh Children, a new set of three songs by the composer Jake Heggie on poems by Margaret Atwood, specifically commissioned for the “Uncharted” album. Addressing themes of environmental degradation, Heggie’s settings veer from righteous indignation to sly humor and pleading earnestness. This riot of tones no doubt demands a lot of personality, but Cohen’s outsized interpretation tended to obscure the work rather than illuminate it.

This was most in evidence in the lighter second installment, “Cicadas,” for which Cohen deployed a bevy of comic bits that elicited chortles but ultimately seemed to indicate a lack of trust that this material could stand on its own. Moments of misjudged excess cropped up in the other songs too, with overly aggressive vocal effects that didn’t quite pan out and over-reliance on a full unfettered sound.

Robert Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39, closed the program and there were a number of moments to appreciate here, from lovely restrained singing in “Intermezzo” to a lively sense of drama in “A Forest Dialogue” and “Auf Einer Burg.” Less successful were passages like the exhausting intensity applied to gentle love song “Mondnacht.” Troublesome as well were some of the more delicate vocal effects needed for these songs, which often emerged as weak and unsupported. A bit of fatigue crept into the back half of the cycle with not much to differentiate the final stretch of songs, though an ebullient reading of the closing “Frühlingsnacht” secured a winning finish.

Churchwell was a patient collaborator throughout the program, delivering intriguing colors in contemplative passages in the Korngold and Hebrew songs, convincing support in the German lieder, and a steady presence to anchor the contemporary material.

Handel made another appearance with an encore of “Quel torrente che cade dal monte,” the capstone of one of Cohen’s frequent roles, Giulio Cesare. Setting a demonic pace, Cohen tackled the runs with gusto and impressively nailed a climactic high note midway through. Still, the hard-charging approach sacrificed opportunities for clarity and shape in the articulation and resulted in a few rough edges on whiplash directional changes.

Vocal Arts DC’s season continues with a recital by Fleur Barron 7:30 p.m. March 14 in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. vocalartsdc.org

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