Haydn: Scena di Berenice, Al tuo seno fortunato, from Orfeo ed Euridice
Mozart: Parto, parto from La clemenza di Tito, Un mota di gioia

Cecilia Bartoli

Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Vienna Concentus Musicus

The Albert Hall was packed out tonight, in contrast to last night's
Tippett. There were coach parties from as far away as Yorkshire (though the
coaches had "Cliff Richard" on them), and the stalls audience was more
fashionably dressed than usual. The programme, which also included two
Haydn symphonies, was an old-fashioned assembly of fairly familiar pieces,
linked by their all being "late" works of their composers.

Bartoli seemed to be genuinely nervous. When she came out, she looked up at
the gallery and looked scared. Maybe someone had mentioned to her that her
voice isn't very big and the Albert Hall is. From the arena she sounded
solid except where she seemed to be singing high, fast passages through her
nose, when the sound can't have made it far.

Her first piece, Haydn's Scena di Berenice, is based on a Phaedra/Don
Carlos situation: Berenice wants to die with her beloved Demetrius, but
tries to persuade herself to live and marry his father Antigonus. She
decides that it doesn't matter what she does as she'll die of grief anyway.
It struck me while Bartoli was singing this that she delivers Italian opera
as you imagine it used to be, with some emphasis on the Italian and a lot
of grand passion. It was all a bit like a Hollywood movie where the girlie
goes on as a last-minute substitute in an Important Concert, and gets a
standing ovation because she loves it all and is so much better than the
uptight Big Star who was too drunk to perform. Even though Bartoli is the
Big Star herself. Haydn commented on the original performance, by Brigida
Giorgi Brante, "Madame Brante (she sing very scanty)", but Bartoli was
I-love-you-all giving.

Her performance of Parto, parto from La clemenza di Tito, in which Sextus,
obsessed with Vitellia agrees to kill Titus against all his convictions,
was not exactly understated but suitably constrained by the tension of the
music and the situation. She made expressive use of her beautiful lower
range, which sounds baritonal on recordings but came over as very sweet in
the hall. Mozart's Moto di gioia, one of the substitute arias in The
marriage of Figaro that Bartoli included in her Met performances, was a
virtuoso bit of good-humoured fluff.

Bartoli's final aria, Al tuo seno fortunato, the Genio's aria from Orfeo,
also emerged as a show-off piece. Haydn probably meant it to be an exercise
in old-style severity, but Bartoli returned to her eye-popping and nostril
flaring, and didn't really deliver the rhetoric of the music. Claren
McFadden's performance a couple of years ago was just as spectacular but
much more austere and serene, as it should be as a guide to the sacred
mysteries of philosophy.

But in general, Bartoli's theatrical performance was spot on for the
programme, and for her fan-club in the audience. And her singing seemed to
impress everyone, in spite of a few moments of potted ham. It lookes as if
the BBC scheduled ten minutes for applause as the end of her set, which was
about right.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Vienna Concentus Musicus provided an
accompaniment for Bartoli that was almost invisible, just right for pieces
designed to show off the singer. Wolfgang Myer emerged from the orchestra
to play the virtuoso clarinet part in Parto, parto, splendidly, but looked
as if he wanted to get back there as fast as possible.

Harnoncourt and the orchestra also played the two Haydn symphonies, 87 and
86, in a style which would alone have justified the cost of admission. (It
was probably worth the cost of admission just to see the bearded and
bespectacled bass player dancing with his instrument in the Capricioso of
Symphony 86.) Harnoncourt's conducting was often beat free. It consisted of
gestures to bring parts in or to point to an expressive tone. He knows he
can leave the orchestra to get on with the detail, the cheerful mannerisms
and the extreme contrasts of dynamics. The pianissimos in the first
movement of Symphony 87 were quieter than the buzz of the microphones.
There were quite a few smiles in the orchestra which quickly spread to the
audience.

Although the tone was always refined, this evening was a bit like one of
the old Viennese nights from the days when Strauss meant Johan and Vienna
meant waltzes. You can see the seeds of the waltz-kings in Haydn's minuets,
whose trio sections look briefly at the dark side before returning to joie
de vivre. The difference is that the lure of tonight's concert for most of
its audience was Bartoli and her recordings rather than the promise of
conventional enjoyment. I think it's an indication of how well Bartoli has
managed her recording career that her goody bag of arias worked superbly as
part of a serious concert like this.