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As I have been doing for the past years I will make a combination here of translations from (3) newspapers and my own remarks, starting with the newspapers De Volkskrant, NRC Handelsblad and BN/DeStem (I did not find one in the Amsterdam newspapers Het Parool or De Telegraaf, very strange).
Volkskrant: Nothing is better than Bartoli live.Many people indulge themselves on Sundays in the golden voice and the strong diction of Cecilia Bartoli on CD and on DVD videocamera's deliver her flaming mimics on a presentation tray.Still you need the concert hall to experience La Bartoli in full glory.There's nothing above seeing Bartoli live.Everything about this mezzo soprano scintillates and sparks, from her shining jewels to her all-enfolding eyes, sharply cut nose and beautiful profile. Like she spontaneously dances with her expressive eyebrows along with the instruments in Händel's light and witty aria Chiudi, chiudi i vagi rai (close, close thy beautiful eyes), is neither visible nor audible on the CD of this programme, Opera proibita. This concert offered a broader picture of the warm bath in which Handel turned and tossed himself in Rome, with orchestra-ouvertures, a concerto grosso by Corelli and 3 more Handel arias. Opera was forbidden from 1790 for a few years.... The Orchestra La Scintilla (The Spark) closely followed Bartoli and perfectly knew how to accompany in the soft-whispering moments. Bartoli and orchestra often played repeating couplets a touch slower. Heartbreakingly beautiful
for example the breath of the murdered king's son Ismael caught in Caldo sangue by Scarlatti. Water-fast leaps and trills and spectacularly long held notes were carried in those times by the strong male chests of muscular castratos. Women did not sing such a curtain-fire of notes. Bartoli showed that it is top-sport, got wide-footed, threw where necessary her head in her neck. And although standing backwards to the orchestra, she neverthless conducted the orchestra with strong gestures.Also Bartoli's timing is excellent.Her coloratura were in unison with the hobos, trumpets and violins.On top of this she quick-fast switched between images and emotions: within one second she painted a cloud, the wind and a flight.Well-known Handel arias like Lascia la spina and the encore Ombra mai fu (wrong,it was Bononcini's,Ton) sounded like new. last year the star from Rome was honoured by the first-ever Concertgebouw Award for her big contribution to the artistic profile of the hal. Now the party was continued by free bubble-wine for everybody during the break (a present by the sponsor, a bank). Empty seats were witness of desparate fans's attempts to still reach the hall in record-long traffic jams (due to a snow storm). After 4 encores Baroli had to show up at a reception organised by the sponsor. The people in the Hall of Mirrors reacted like the working-bees to their Queen-bee.
NRC (abridged): Bartoli's biggest strength is her purity.
She comes, sings and conquers.Year in year out La Bartoli gets overwhelmingly standing ovations in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Her voice is relatively small but her talent is unsurpassed and her virtuoso technique surpasses all limits.Yet her biggest strength is her purity. She still sings with the enthusiam and spontaneity with which she once must have been practising the lessons by her mother.
Bartoli is better than her male predecesors with crushing (overwhelming) voice acrobatics but adds warmblooded and utterly female elements to it.Everything she sings comes straight from her heart, so that even the 8 world premieres on her CD now sounded very familiar. Blood-clottingly (as the Dutch expression goes, Ton) beautiful sounded Scarlatti's Caldo sangue, while she made the impossible possible in hair-raising arias like Disserrativi o porte d'averno by Handel.
BN/De Stem:Last week she sang in the Concertgebouw to promote her new CD. Furthermore Cecilia Bartoli is mainly in Holland to buy flower bulbs.
What does she do when she is Holland? Then she buys bulbs. "For at home in Rome" she says, "No tulips but Amarillis.They are such giants here and wat a fantastic flowers sprout from them.In Holland there's such an enormous choice and no matter how often I have been here already (15 times, Ton) I still love it". Speaking about lovely flowers. her new Cd also contains a rich bouquet of arias.
She sings Handel, Caldara and Scarlatti. "At first sight these have little in common, but the southern atmosphere of Rome had such an influence on them that the pieces on the CD were still a unity. For the Sicilian Scarlatti and the Spaniard Caldara this was imagineable but even the German Handel sounds as Italian here as possible.
She made an album that makes us curious for the next project.
"Sure, I will keep searching for lesser known repertoire. I don't mind recording what others have done already but it has to add something. For example by accompaniment by instruments of the time of the composer. Your voice, your own instrument, has to be able to integrate with the style,the sound of an old hobo, trumpet of violin. These have different sounds than modern instruments. I still make discoveries. I would like to record work by Caccini, Barbara Strozzi.Especially her work is unknown, but beautiful. Preferably I would go further back in time, to the Renaissance, to Monteverdi. I would love to sing him. His Poppea is a great role for me.
Bartoli is one of few classical singers to reach the popcharts
but that does not make her feel an ambassador for this music under the youngsters. " I don't think it is our duty as musicians to educate youth. That is to the parents and schools who should start with this at an early age. But I am glad that I am able to reach a wide audience with baroque music. If you do it well it will inspire young people. The rhythm, dynamics, energy is suitable for the young".
She made a short film because of Salieri. Is it not time for a real film role? " I would adore that and I have ideas about this already. The composer Salieri is much more interesting than Mozart. But because he always fails in the movie Amadeus everyone now thinks he was a bad composer. I was really surprised about the quality of his music".
"Such movie would have to be different than "Farinelli". For this voice they have mixed a countertenor's with a soprano voice, a very artificial sound. So it has to be real. I want to sing in a movie with real voices".
So far the papers.
So you could read that the weather had a big influence on the concert-goers. Some of "our" fans barely made it in time.
Buying the programme-booklet we had a bad surprise, reading that there would not be a autograph-session afterwards and for the first time Cecilia did not even exit through the artists exit so that none of us could get to talk with her but I had noticed during the concert that she was well aware that we were there, most of us in the front 2 rows.
When she came down to the stage a roaring applause decended onto here.She was wearing the black robe of the CD, first time I saw her in a black robe (not incl. the black suit she wore once). Sitting right in front of her in the first half of the concert I could splendidly follow all her gestures with her hands and that is as fascinating as the singing.
Looking at her really adds a lot to the experience, as the newspaper writes also.
The programme was quite identical to all previous ones but the performance not equal to what you hear on the CD as the most thrilling are always the small differences in her embellishments, like the long-long-long-held Vanne in Vanne pentita. Pure magic, a short moment in paradise and then back to earth, untill the next thrill transfers you back to Heaven.It gas been colourfully described here how she did it all,like in Chicago by our reputable master-reviewers Pen and Klaus. I cannot do that better, but a concert in the Concertgebouw is never just about her technique but pure magic by the audience behaviour, sometimes you can hear a needle drop. But alas, it is not always equally nice, this time the audience was less polite and there was too much coughing and during the soft magic of Vanne pentita someone's phone went off ,despite the warnings before the concert.
For me it broke the spell, but it is a credit to Cecilia that she keeps concentrated as if nothing happened. I expected that she would stop,like a conductor once did in a symphony when someone entered the hall late and he started all over again when that person had been removed from the hall.
But Cecilia never fails to move me,although the tears I had when I first heard L'alta Roma on CD did not come this time.
That's partly due to my nervous tensions in such concert. It is not easy to stay in my preferred mood with so many people around me. But it was once again an evening that passed all too quickly. At 10.45 PM (start at 8.15) it was all over, but I always have the consolation of being in the position to see her again. How different must that be for fans in Japan and Korea, or Spain who may see her only again in several years, not to mention the countries where she may never go again.
Cecilia had a farewell dinner with the orchestra as it was their last concert. The restaurant would close early so we did not see her, good news for all those fans who had to leave early.
There are more newspaper reviews than the ones mentioned here. I will "do" them later.
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Amsterdam reviews: There's nothing better than Bartoli live 
Great Ton, thanks very much....
by Mariska, 2005, Nov 29
MORE reviews (as promised)
by Ton, 2005, Dec 01
