So Far, Rossini Year’s a Parade of Star-Vehicle Recitals

There is little likelihood that the 200th anniversary of Gioachino Rossini’s birth will arouse anything like the hysteria engendered during the recently concluded Mozart year.

Rossini’s sizable output wasn’t varied enough to provide comfort to every possible practitioner on virtually every instrument, as did Mozart’s catholic production. Rossini was above all a composer for the human voice.

This Rossini year has not brought the longed-for bounty of still unrecorded operas, of which there are about two dozen, but rather star-vehicle recitals of material culled from those operas.

If the Rossini revival that began in the mid-1960s was sparked by Marilyn Horne, who showed by her example that this incredibly florid, wide-ranging stuff really could be sung, then 25-year-old Cecilia Bartoli is likely to be the reigning prima donna of this celebratory year--and, one trusts, for years to come.

The latest recorded proof of Bartoli’s special, lofty place among current vocalists is a program of arias from operas written by Rossini for his first wife, Isabella Colbran (London 436 075).

Bartoli not only sings them with ear-boggling aplomb, but she characterizes , something rarely attempted in operatic excerpts. This can be heard to particularly powerful effect in Elizabeth’s two big scenes from “Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra,” as she invests one with optimal woman-scorned fury (it doesn’t take the sharpest ears to detect here the downbeat original of Rosina’s perky “Io sono docile” in “Barbiere di Siviglia”) and shows in the other the Queen’s gentler, more vulnerable side via some ravishing soft singing.

Irresistible too is Bartoli’s pure, effusive joy in singing, as exhibited in “Tanti affetti” from “La donna del lago,” and her projection of divine hauteur in a scene from everybody’s favorite, “Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo,” whose cabaletta unexpectedly turns into the original of the second-act curtain aria in “La Cenerentola.”

Bartoli executes the taxing runs and leaps with rhythmic punch and accuracy. She hits most of the high notes squarely, while the lower register is gently accented, without the chest tones that are anathema to some listeners (and heaven for Horne-lovers).

The young mezzo’s helpful collaborators are the Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro La Fenice, Venice, conducted by Ion Marin.

For all Bartoli’s gifts, she never gives the false impression that this is easy music. If she did, and it were, listening to it wouldn’t be half the fun. The current work of veteran soprano Katia Ricciarelli, however, revives the once widely held notion that Rossini is impossibly difficult to sing.

Ricciarelli, her instrument frayed from use (or misuse) on top but still attractive in its plaintive middle register, forces direct comparison with Bartoli in the “Semiramide” cavatina, “Bel raggio lusinghier,” and her effort is simply swamped by the younger singer’s freshness and agility.

But when agility is less a requisite and cabalettas not the end-all of the music--for example, in “Selva opaca” from “Guglielmo Tell” (everything is sung in Italian here) and an aria from “Bianca e Falliero”--Ricciarelli’s textual sensitivity and dignity shine through.

Serviceable backing is provided by the Lyon Opera Chorus and Orchestra under Gabriele Ferro (Virgin Classics 91484).

If Horne showed modern singers (and listeners) that it could be done in the first place and Bartoli now shows that it can be done with charm and finesse, Samuel Ramey provides comparable signposts for the bass singer. Rossini, after all, is the complete egalitarian: Every one of his principals has to be a coloratura.

And Ramey’s florid singing is impressive, notably in Assur’s mad scene from “Semiramide” and the concert aria “Alle voci della gloria,” reconstructed by Rossini scholar Philip Gossett and receiving its first recording here.

There’s some smudging of the runs in the arias from “La Cenerentola” and “L’Italiana in Algeri,” where one also wants less stentorian dignity, more wit and certainly more dynamic variety than Ramey provides. But the American gets plenty of mileage on voice alone.

Ferro is again the conductor, this time of the Chorus and Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera (Teldec 73242).

Note: Eight of Arturo Toscanini’s tough, hell-for-leather Rossini overtures, recorded between 1945 and 1953, are back (RCA Victor 60289, mid-price).

This often infuriatingly charmless collection of familiar curtain-raisers does contain one of the all-time Toscanini thrillers: a wild-eyed and surprisingly well-recorded “Siege de Corinth” overture, a memorable showing of skill under extreme pressure by the NBC Symphony strings. It’s easily worth the price of the disc.