Word: aria
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Jean Marshall's Countess was less successful. Her voice never blended with the other, and "Dove sono i beimomento," which must be the loveliest aria in the opera, came out nervous and constricted. She might have been singing in Martian for all the words I could make...
Lucy Shelton's Marcellina was capable and appropriately maternal. Richard Firmin, playing both Basilio and Curzio, melted smoothly into the ensembles (his aria was wisely omitted, as was Marcellina's). David Cornell's Bartolo was strong but a little clumsy and headstrong. Angus Duncan as Antonio was marvellously and bitterly ironic. He also had one of the most brilliant lines of the translation: describing Cherubino's leap from a window, he testifies, "I'm sure that he wasn't on horseback, for no horse from the window came down." But of all the minor roles, Juliet Cunningham's Barbarina...
...opening chorus of Bleib bei uns (BWV 6) featured a large number of choral trills. Although they demonstrated the chorus's virtuosity, the emphasis placed upon them distorted rather than heightened the expression of Bach's musical ideas. In the remainder of the cantata, Jane Struss' alto aria was lucid and delicate, if not overpowering, and Sorensen gracefully navigated the difficult tenor aria...
...Herr denket" did, however, suffer slightly through being somewhat uniform in sound, especially since the entire soprano section sang the soprano aria, and all the men sang the tenor-bass duet, for no apparent reason. Part of the function of these solos is to break up the homogeneity of the choral sound, and though the chorus sang lightly and clearly enough to prevent their sounding rough or gross, the listener missed the delicate sound of individual voices singing ornate lines clearly intended for solo performance...
...stage of opera for more than 100 years, until the end of the 18th century, constituted about 70% of all male singers. They postured and strutted on the stage like peacocks improvising elaborate vocal filigrees, inserting grace notes or unaccompanied passages, some of which lasted as long as the aria itself. They combined the range of the female voice with the power of the male, interposing a dizzying array of appoggiaturas, mordents, cadenzas, slides, slurs, shakes, trills, turns and leaps. For tonal purity, flexibility precision and breath control, it was a display of vocal acrobatics that has never been equaled...