Many in the nineteenth century rated Cimarosa at least as highly as Mozart and one can hear why in the two excerpts here from his last, unfinished opera: a serene Andante aria with flute obbligato and a big-scale scena, both splendidly written for the voice and evincing a musical mind moving confidently into a new century that the composer regrettably did not live to enjoy. It is adventurous of Roocroft to choose such a rarity and she is to be congratulated on showing her usual identification with the role in hand along with a plentiful display of temperament. These qualities are also heard in the more familiar Berenice of Haydn, where the woman's varying emotions are conveyed with large-scale, impassioned conviction.
The arias from Mozart's operas represent, Pamina apart, the extent of Roocroft's repertory in this field to date, though it would have been better to have something other than ''Per pieta'', already recorded by the soprano in the complete Gardiner Cosi fan tutte (Archiv, 2/94) and differing little from that reading. As it happens, there's more light and shade here than in the other two Mozart offerings, but none challenges some of the most memorable accounts of these pieces on disc. While they and the concert arias once again display the soprano's technical accomplishment and her dramatic involvement, they also reveal the negative side of her performance. Above mezzo-forte the voice is inclined to harden, with the vibrato becoming more pronounced, giving the tone an unfortunate glare.
Nor is there the variety of approach, of nuance, to catch and hold the listener's attention. Take down from the shelf, for instance, Lucia Popp's version of K295a in the Mozart Edition box of concert arias (Philips), and you hear a singer who uses words to shape her interpretation, and one who changes her tone and her pacing, beneficially quicker than Roocroft's, to convey its inner meaning. Roocroft too often seems intent on the mere production of big tone and a tone that begins to tire the ear over the long span of a recital such as this. You'll also find the Philips recording of Popp's voice better focused than that provided for Roocroft by EMI. Marriner and his orchestra are well-mannered rather than inspired partners on a journey that has its moments of interest in the Cimarosa and Haydn but seems to confirm the need for the singer to go to a good interpretative coach, if such a thing still exists, to deepen and extend her interpretative skill. '