Splendidly well-matched duettists, Bartoli and Terfel (or are we on Christian-name terms even in review?) are as vivid a pair of vocal comedians-and-charmers as any in the business. The fatal thing would be if they tried to outdo each other, but, to all aural appearances, they do not: they spark naturally and nicely, and gain accordingly, both as individuals and as an act.
They are also instinctively good at making records. Recitative can be light and quick-witted – listeners are following the libretto and don’t need points underlined or played for laughs. Don Giovanni can whisper sweet nothings in Zerlina’s ear, Adina can suggest a subtle compound of feelings in a shading of tone. Both singers know that their voice-faces must never go blank, the unseen movements inert, and in the Papagena-Papageno duet (for instance) the interplay is as clear to the mind’s eye as any stage-action would be in the theatre. Sometimes there is a hair’s-breadth misjudgement (in Il barbiere Rosina’s ‘Un biglietto?’ should surely be all surprise and wonderment, and the ‘Eccola qua’ a businesswoman’s fait accompli), but generally all goes well, the point being that there is nothing ‘general’ about it (when Figaro, in the other opera, starts on his room-measurements in the very opening moments of the disc he is actually counting, we ‘see’ him and know that this is what for the moment is on his mind).
Of the singing as such, it is good to be able to report Terfel on graceful form and Bartoli in fine voice – though I do wish she would find another way of singing Rossini’s groups and runs. In the Barbiere duet, for example, ‘Fortunati affetti miei’ and ‘Ah, tu solo’ are done in the way which now seems to be the only one she knows, semi-aspirated, semi-staccato; and it really isn’t the only, or the best, way, as is clear if one samples at random four others, Victoria de los Angeles, Maria Callas, Jennifer Larmore and Susanne Mentzer, all of whom are graceful and apt in a way that makes Bartoli’s manner almost grotesque. Come to that, Terfel could stand to gain by a little comparative listening also: Figaro’s semiquavers as executed by Sesto Bruscantini (with los Angeles – EMI, 5/92) are quite a different thing. Still, much remains to be enjoyed in the new disc, finely recorded and with stylish accompaniment under Myung-Whun Chung. And a few semiquavers shouldn’t come between friends like Cecilia, Bryn and their multitudinous admirers.'