Composed when Mozart was 12, Bastien und Bastienne is his second opera; he already had La finta semplice, a more sophisticated piece, intended for the opera house, behind him. This, based on Rousseau's Le devin du village, is a German Singspiel with broken dialogue (Mozart was later to add recitatives); it tells a tale of a pair of sweethearts who are brought together after a lovers' tiff by the village soothsayer, Colas. It consists of 15 numbers, mostly quite brief. This performance starts off as if it is going to be too artful by half, with exaggerated accents and an over-quick tempo in the Overture, and some selfconsciously artful phrasing from Edita Gruberova in some of her early songs. But it turns out pretty happily on the whole: Gruberova's singing has clarity and charm, and her spirited singing and her graceful little touches in the slower arias serve the music well. Listen for example to her lovely shaping of ''Er war mir sonst treu und ergeben''. The Colas has a ripe, fruity bass; I found the Bastien, Vinson Cole, a shade plain and sometimes dryish, but he too has spirit and clarity of line and diction. In short, I don't think the piece could be much better done; certainly this recording is far to be preferred to the one by Harrer on Philips where all the parts are taken by boys, which makes the work oddly sexless and deprives it of its proper variety of vocal timbre.
Filling the spare space with music—something for each of the soloists—of Mozart's maturity may perhaps have been ill-advised, especially as the performances are rather variable. Un moto di gioia, written for Susanna in Act 2 of Figaro for the 1789 revival, is a pretty piece, nowhere near as apt to the context as the aria it replaced (''Venite inginocchiatevi'', with which it has some interesting points of resemblance), but spirited and done here with charm and a finely etched line. But I found Gruberova's singing oddly dull and static in the Susanna aria from Act 4—which I must say comports oddly with a substitute Susanna aria; the woodwind playing here too seems wanting in warmth and shapeliness. The bass aria also is rather dully done, sung with little dramatic impulse. The piece I enjoyed the most however was the tenor one, where Cole sings far more interestingly, and lyrically, than he does in the opera; and the aria itself is a long and very beautiful one, richly scored.
Warmly recommended, then, for the sake of Misero! o sogno, and to some degree for Bastien und Bastienne, of which it is certainly the better available version. But it's not really an essential record for the Mozartian, on whose purse there will surely be many more pressing calls in the months ahead.'