From USItalia, November 2003

Cecilia Bartoli's The Salieri Album (Decca) is a remarkable artifact for many reasons. A matte-black marvel of packaging, crammed with reproductions of autograph scores, museum-quality images of Canova sculptures, and a weighty musicological essay, the CD gives one pause: such ado about Antonio Salieri, long held to epitomize the superficiality of Italian musical culture (in comparison with Teutonic profunditas). Even more surprising is that this high-minded bit of musical archaeology has hit not only the classical charts in the United States, but also the pop charts in Germany, France, and Belgium. And all of this with nary a gondola, a plate of spaghetti, nor a shiny red Ferrari in sight!

Cecilia Bartoli has come a long way since the start of her career, when her handlers' offensively stereotyped presentation of her eclipsed what was truly noteworthy about the Roman mezzo: that she was brainy, ambitious, and intent on exploring Italy's vast, sometimes neglected musical heritage with real intellectual rigor. It's something for which the press has never forgiven conductor Riccardo Muti, for example—that "greasy southerner" who doesn't know his place and has taken all the fun out of Italian opera (because, after all, what else is there to it?). Cute and perky, Bartoli has been a less threatening advocate for Italian music. The continuing evolution of her image from that of a goofy gamine to a respected, influential musician—the wiliest of stealth campaigns, in my view—has left even this hard-boiled cynic shaking her head in admiration.

Not surprisingly, then, the signorina came off as a little guarded when I met with her in New York. Unfailingly polite and cheery despite her obvious fatigue, Bartoli up close is very different from the dervish-like dumpling one sees on stage. Slender, dressed in black from head to toe, she has pensive brown eyes that glow with intelligence and tiny, childlike hands whose fingernails are gnawed to the quick. She listens attentively, rarely volunteers information, and radiates a steely discipline beneath her gracious, easygoing façade. Bartoli, in short, is anything but the artless enfant sauvage that the media have so breathlessly portrayed for much of the past fifteen years.

Bartoli deftly sidesteps issues that might ruffle feathers. Pressed about a production of Bellini's La sonnambula reportedly in the works (and then cancelled) at the Met, she smiles. "It was something in the air, let us say… but it was never a definite project. Who knows," she leans forward, her captivating expression promising more than her words reveal, "it could still come to pass someday!" Asked for her views on bel canto—a term that some Italian scholars apply to the operas of Mozart and even Handel—she wrinkles her brow, then answers diplomatically. "Well, bel canto is something that I would tend to associate with a different historical period: early Romanticism, the operas of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti." It is the perfect textbook definition, served up by a woman who has more smarts than a dozen academics. Bartoli would be infuriating were she not such an absolute professional.

Where Bartoli does allow herself to be drawn out is on her artistic choices. The conversation turns repeatedly to Mozart: to Così fan tutte, in which she has sung all three female leads: Despina (the role of her 1996 Met début), Dorabella, and—most surprisingly—Fiordiligi, a role usually assigned to full lyric sopranos like Renée Fleming. With quiet assurance, she points out that Adriana Ferrarese, an early Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro (one of Bartoli's roles), was also the first Fiordiligi: "So it was a historically motivated assumption. It's wonderful to follow in the footsteps of great singers." She fairly leaps off the sofa, abandoning her reserved, ladylike posture, when Donna Elvira comes up. "She seems to be the strongest character in Don Giovanni, but I think she's really the most fragile. I see her as an angel come down to earth to save Don Giovanni from his terrible destiny. She fails, though: Don Giovanni's punishment is foreordained." Almost apologetically, she adds: "It's a very Catholic view of things."

And Salieri? Here Bartoli really lets down her guard. Reminded that the Legnano-born composer has been depicted as both diabolical (Mozart's murderer!) and mediocre, her eyes flash sarcasm. "Well, it takes real talent to be both mediocre and diabolical!" She beams with pride as she points out that her February 2004 Salieri tour will probably mark the United States premiere of most of the works on the program. But when asked about her future plans—Penelope and Poppea, for example?—she nods thoughtfully, allows that Monteverdi achieved an "extraordinary fusion of words and music," but gently, visibly withdraws into her shell. Being Cecilia Bartoli? It will happen on her own terms, clearly, and so much the better for that.

©2003-04 Marion Lignana Rosenberg.