Ensemble Matheus's accompaniment perfectly echoes the character's feelings. Just when the melodic cousinhood of several of these arias becomes apparent, Bartoli changes the energy by singing Rosane's "Solo quella guancia bella" (Only for that lovely cheek) from La verità in cimento (1720), with a smiling, teasing, classic soubrette voice that's adorable and just a bit dangerous. This kind of singing makes me feel grateful to be alive. Her concentration in her long, softly voiced lines is as wondrous as the spell she weaves. Playing the male role of Caio Siliocoincidentally sung in the opera's premiere by soprano castrato Bartolomeo Bartolitoday's Bartoli sings with a virtually indescribable beauty that left me holding back tears. But your heart may skip a beat at her slow, soft, lyrical singing in "Leggi almeno, tiranna infedele" (At least, you cruel and faithless woman), from Ottone in Villa (1713). And when she rages in echt Bartoli manner, as in "Se lento ancora il fulmine" (If the thunderbolt delays in avenging), from Argippo (1730)one of many Vivaldi operas you've never heardher bubbling vibrato and intentionally darkened and weighted tone give the sense that she could fly off the handle in a heartbeat. When Bartoli sings softly and sweetly, as she does in a number of these arias, the beauty of her pure, sweet tones could tear your heart out. The singing is limpid and seamless, with rapid, wide-spanning coloratura runs flawlessly dispensed, and the longest of long-breathed lines produced with little to no apparent effort. I defy you to hear any trace of age in her voice. Though we don't know over how long a period Bartoli recorded this album's 10 tracks, she finished the project with Jean-Christophe Spinosi's Ensemble Matheus, a baroque group, in 2018, when she turned 52. Stereophile occasionally awards a Joint Recording of the Month, and Cecilia Bartoli's second recording of Vivaldi arias deserves no less. Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Matheus Ensembleĭecca 002932502 (24/96 download, CD).
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