Cecilia Bartoli proves Handel has no rivals

Cecilia Bartoli - Barbican, 9 December 2010

On a cold, damp winter's night with the Barbican totally bereft of sandwiches (again), half its ladies loos out of action (still) and bar staff who chuck ice into into your essential V&T without even asking - that's when you need Cecilia Bartoli, reliable bearer of warmth and sunshine and seasonal cheer.

Her December Barbican visits are now a regular fixture, selling out instantly, months in advance. I saw a few familiar faces in the audience. There are fans who visit every year from as far away as Glasgow to bask in her glow. No Dame Viv and no starry supporters this time round, but Barbican supremo Sir Nicholas Kenyon (who should by rights have had his hands down a u-bend - or at least buttering a few rolls) couldn't keep away.

The billing was 'Handel and his Rivals', but the latter were restricted to a couple of brief novelty overtures from Veracini and Porpora. Apart from giving La Ceci a few moments backstage to loosen her breathtaking stays and rest her five inch heels, all they did was prove what we already knew, that Handel was by far the superior composer. And British! Never a bad choice for a London date.

She strode on in elegant strapless black, diamonds sparkling at wrist and ear. An unusually subdued choice for the highway queen perhaps, but as with her repertoire, she knows exactly what suits her and displays her assets to advantage.

Virtuoso opening numbers from Rinaldo and Lotario proved a little ambitious for a voice not yet fully warmed-up. Ah, mio cor from Alcina was a different matter. The voice may be slender but Cecilia can bend and twist and colour it to suggest everything from fury to the darkest despair. Handel's genius for characterisation never wastes notes. Cecilia's fearlessly brilliant coloratura embodied a woman literally shaking with rage then a moment later she was heaving with grief in the softest of pianissimos.

I do sort of understand where Bartoli's critics are coming from. When her material isn't up to the same standard as her abilities, her vocal contortions and idiosyncratic technique can seem mannered, a merely athletic display. But when music is married so precisely to meaning as it is in Handel's greatest music, then no-one can reveal the psychological nuance quite like la Ceci with her cornucopia of vocal tricks.

But that's the serious side. The other is the sheer infectious joy radiating around the Barbican as she relished the bubbling Ah, che sol from Teseo.

She shared the second half's selection from Giulio Cesare with pint-sized countertenor Franco Fagoli, a sweet-voiced Caesar to her imperious Cleopatra. La Ceci didn't show us her asp, but the rest of her ample goods were on display in a Mae West lace corset and clinging satin skirt. She was as generous with Fagoli as she was with the Kammerorchester Basel, the interplay between vocalist and instrumentalist highlighted as oboe and trumpet stepped up to the front of the stage for their obbligato turn.

(Apologies for the Marge Simpson skin tones in most of the photos below - I think the Barbican lighting may have been to blame)

**UPDATE** - scroll down to the bottom of the page for Kyoko's fantastic video of the curtain call!

 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
  

The full Programme:
Handel Ouverture from Rinaldo
Handel 'Furie terribili' from Rinaldo
Handel ' Dunque i lacci… Ah, crudele' from Rinaldo
Handel ' Scherza in mar' from Lotario
Veracini Ouverture No 6 in G minor - Allegro
Handel ' Ah, mio cor', from Alcina
Porpora Ouvertures from Cantatas Gedeone' and 'Perdono, amata Nice - Adagio – Spiritoso andante – Allegro
Handel ' Ah, che sol per te, Teseo… M’adora l’idol mio' from Teseo
Handel ' Mi deride… Desterò dall’empia Dite' from Amadigi
Handel Scenes from “Giulio Cesare in Egitto”
Ouverture
' Va tacito e nascosto'
Sinfonia 'Il Parnasso'
'V’adoro pupille'
' Al lampo dell’armi'
Che sento, o dio… Se pietà'
'Dell’ondoso periglio… Aure, per pieta'
Da tempeste
'Caro!... Bella!... Più amabile beltà'

And here's a top quality video of the curtain call, shot by Kyoko - from the front row!

Comments

[Rannaldini]

What can one say about the barbican? Last year - right in the middle of the Beethoven 4 piano concerto - right at the silent apex of the cadenza, a loud buzzing noise came from the stage and persisted. I complained only to be told....wait for this.... "Well it always does that, and don;t forget Sir, in the C19 when Beethoven wrote it there would have been many more noises..." I kid you not. Wrote to Sir Nicholas 'Crawler' Kenyon and was told he was saddened and shared my disappointment. They constantly ring me up asking me for donations to their various programmes - I make this pledge in writing. I will donate £1,000 in cash towards the cost of the dynamite.

[Ysabel]

How lucky you are to see Bartoli perform. Is the Barbican a good venue for her; did you have any problems hearing her?

[Prodicus]

May I suggest placement of your explosives somewhere under the box office manager's lair? He or she runs the least efficient, rudest, most rapacious and customer-unfriendly booking system in London.

Their credit voucher system for returns is shameful and quite unnecessary. Visitors to London who may not have the opportunity to come to another performance within six months of returning a ticket have to lose their money. In my case this week, £130-ish for two Bartoli tickets. A nice little earner for the Barbican, eh? A business with any ethical sense (let us discount leftie whining about 'Access to The Arts') would **REFUND MY MONEY**, Sir Nicholas.

[Stephen Follows]

And the number of times I've complained about them putting the lights down so far that you can't read a word of the programme... They seem to pride themselves on making it especially dark when there are unfamiliar texts to follow, like those for Sunday's Alma Mahler songs. It's particularly bad at the back of the stalls, which are the only affordable seats from which one can hear anything. Grrr.

P.S. 'Crawler' is right. how else did he get any of those high-profile jobs? He certainly isn't qualified for any of them.

[Tristan, London]

Turn the lights right off, I say.

At the Bartoli concert, people around me - young and old - fiddled with the programme endlessly throughout the performance, reading bits and pieces and turning the pages backwards and forwards endlessly. It is profoundly irritating and shushing them just creates an awful atmosphere.

The programme was advertised well in advance, and free to download from the internet ages before the recital so one could read the text beforehand if one wanted or needed.

With Bartoli on stage, does one really need to direct one's eyes elsewhere?

[Drel]

and who doesn't know most of the text from these Handel staples? The Porpora maybe but you can read that in a quick minute.

[Des di Moaner]

Could it be that Sir K's absence from the roll-buttering kitchens was the result of exhaustion brought on by his efforts with the stuffed peppers the previous Saturday? Undercooked, tasteless, filled with some form of cold, congealing, jaw-binding grain of unknown provenance, these were - and I'm not one to give up easily when I've splashed out £8.50 - uneatable. This on top of the box office's decision to keep secret the fact that Harteros had pulled out(cf Alcina comments). We phoned twice to check she would be there, and twice we were lied to. This has happened too often: from now on, it's wait for a last-minute return or go elsewhere for music.

[Zurriuss]

Good good. Love Ceci and like your post very much. The writing style is just like mine but in Georgian. :)

[Will]

I agree, turn the lights down and get people actually concentrating on the stage rather than be buried in programmes.

[Kit Gill]

Try being up in the balcony where the spotlight operator directly above us sat (or rather shuffled around) on a squeaky (or rather, squawky) wheeled high chair throughout the performance (when he wasn't walking around his platform and coughing, that is). Must the cheap seats suffer so that a bit of extra light can be poured on La Ceci? She shines brightly enough without it!

[Rupert]

The Barbican should be blown up and its site used for something more useful to society, like a dog hotel and beauty parlour. I have never in my life seen a more horrendously unfriendly concert hall.

The approach from the Tube is the stuff of nightmares even for young males, let alone young ladies expected to trip down a 200m tunnel or risk getting assaulted at one of the score of dark twists and corners waiting should they try to brave the terrace level of the complex.

Once inside it doesn't get any better. Where is the concert hall? Where the theatre? Where the toilets? You can wet yourself while trying to make your way around the labyrinthine architectural hate statement.

The food's crap, the staff unhelpful.

One saving grace: a lovely boy who sells records in Farringdon's, who fills his T-shirt most beautifully and flashes melting smiles at customers.

For him and him alone would I return.

[Ton van der Velden]

I couldm not come to the concert but Barbican immediately refunded the money to my credit card.I had it back within 2 days. I don't like the hall, but nothing bad about the Box office.
A Dutch fan.

[Purity McCall]

Well it was a gorgeous evening and even though I was up in the balcony where CBs voice isn't best served, it was gorgeous. The girly flirty stuff can be a bit overwhelming - I still long for a whole evening of Bartoli in full introspection mode, maybe with a bit of down and dirty and mean thrown in (I know she can do it, I saw those photos of her in Doc Martens...) - but when she's good she's incredible!

Re. Barbican... what can one say. Any venue that needs to hire a small army of arts students to wander around with 'special bags' just to help save the poor lost souls wandering aimlessly around looking for the foodhall needs to rethink its signage. And as to the bar, I reduced one young man to a stunned silence by asking for an Armagnac. Following in interminable wait he finally, with help, found it and then pulled out a whisky tumbler to serve it. Sigh. Why when I was his age I could knock out a vodka martini blindfold and was on my way to mastering the perfect salted glass...

[manxmaid]

Well, we seem to be well on the way to assembling a hit squad to take out the horrendous airport terminal that the Barbican has always been - "Rannaldini's Eleven", perhaps (sounds suitably like a symphony). Perhaps @Rannaldini should attend the NYD Concert in Vienna in disguise, in case the Barbican security take
an unusual interest in the closing Radetsky March audience-participation shots . .

[Virginia]

Not sure why so many people hate the Barbican centre. It's my favourite place in London ! (and I don't really care if they sell sandwiches or not ;) I think the architectural intricacies of the place do make it special, and I find it a very heart-warming place (don't know why, but I guess because I like the atmosphere and the fantastic music I've always heard there (only once was I disappointed). However I do agree that they should turn off the lights, and it would be great if people could for once listen to the music rather than cough or make noise (although this happens in every concert hall).