Cecilia Bartoli ('breathtaking vocal fireworks' Oper Aktuell) and Javier Camarena ('irresistibly funny') take the leads in Rossini's boisterous farce, wittily transposed to post-war France in Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's 'scintillating production' (Opera Today) for the Zürich Opera House.

One of the greatest artists of her generation, Cecilia Bartoli is at the height of her powers. With thrilling performances of Mozart and Haydn arias, recorded live in concert, this double disc set also includes symphonic performances from Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his Concentus Musicus Wien.

iva Vivaldi! is a concert by Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli interspersing arias from the 20 surviving operas of Vivaldi with two concertos. It is given with the early music ensemble Il Giardino Armonico before a very appreciative audience in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. (There is very little overlap between her studio-recorded Vivaldi Album and this 105-minute concert.) Anyone thinking of Vivaldi's vocal music in the context of his uplifting scared works may get a shock, for Bartoli performs as if her life depended upon it, attacking pieces such as "Armatae Face et Anguibus" from Juditha Triumphans with vengeful gusto. Bartoli's natural Italian and the live atmosphere of Maria Grazia d'Alessio's oboe gives her interpretation of the quietly haunting and melodically rich "Non ti Lusinghi la Crudeltade" from Tito Manlio a particular piquancy. The Flautino Concerto is a most attractive interlude, while the more famous Lute/Violin Concerto beguiles with its exquisite lyricism. –Gary S. Dalkin

Bartoli's evident, and infectious, enthusiasm and delight in studying the career of Maria Malibran is sketched in Michael Sturminger's documentary, in whichwe follow her to many of the theatres and streets associated with the diva beloved of the Romantic imagination. In libraries and museums we are able to view some of the scores used by Malibran in her brief and stormy progress through the capitals of Europe. From the opening shots of a gondola in Venice passing through the Rio Malibran, to the final glimpse of her tomb in Brussels, one gets some idea of the impact she made on audiences in the 1820s and '30s.