Cecilia Bartoli/Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Haydn

A companion DVD to Cecilia Sings Mozart (VL-7/03), this concert featuring music by Mozart's senior contemporary Franz Josef Haydn, sung by mezzo Cecilia Bartoli with the Concentus Musicus Wien under conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the 2001 Styriarte Festival in Graz, Austria, shares the earlier release's strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, the playing time feels short at a bit over 80 minutes, and the performance of an orchestral work using original instruments--in this case Haydn's Symphony No. 92 (Oxford)--is more energetic than charming, with heavy accents and pronounced tempo adjustments (though the finale is very exciting when taken at such a tremendous clip). Bartoli's singing in two Haydn rarities, however, is wonderfully agile and committed: the cantata Arianna a Naxos is done in a 19th century arrangement for string accompaniment--Haydn's original uses just the keyboard--that works beautifully, as does the dramatic scene Berenice che fai. Both pieces demand superb vocalism and Bartoli provides it, while Harnoncourt proves a sensitive partner. Technically the disc is state-of-the-art, with excellent camerawork and DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio options. The DVD extras--rehearsal footage, a brief conversation between Bartoli and Harnoncourt, and a short documentary about the festival--are decent but hardly decisive; it's Bartoli's heavenly voice that makes this one desirable. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)