Sukowa Plays the Role of Singer

When she wasn’t looking, Barbara Sukowa the actress became Barbara Sukowa the singer. True, the German-born performer — widely acclaimed for her roles in such films as R.W. Fassbinder’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz” (1980) and “Lola” (1981) and Margarethe von Trotta’s “Rosa Luxemburg” (1986) — has long enjoyed a parallel career in the concert hall. Among other endeavors, she’s toured the world’s capitals delivering the spoken, or Sprechstimme, sections of Arnold Schönberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” with the Schönberg Ensemble. The 14-piece Dutch group also backed Ms. Sukowa on a new album of lieder by Schumann and Schubert, a recording of lush virtuosity and piercing intensity that frames Ms. Sukowa’s dramatic gifts as surely as any camera.