The name of John Dickie (son of Murray) arouses interest and his achievements deserve congratulation. Still, a solo recital makes many demands and it can hardly be said that they are all met here. For instance, there is a need for variety of tone and expression. Occasionally, perhaps at an exclamation (''Ha! das ist Papagenos Ton'' or ''Tradito! schernito!'') he will make a vocal gesture towards dramatization; sometimes, most notably in the clement Tito's arias, he will adjust the overall expression (solicitude in the first, enthusiasm in the second). But it is rare to find oneself, as a listener, recalling that this is a particular character expressing specific emotions or thinking things over in a definable situation. The voice itself is a genuine, well-placed tenor (and that is rare enough to make it valuable), clear in focus and apparently at ease with the tessitura of these arias. Care has gone into his training in legato, florid work and breath-control. He sings the long run in ''Il mio tesoro'' without taking a breath in the middle and he articulates the semiquavers cleanly. He gets through ''Ich baue ganz'', yet the effect is not really graceful either in the runs or elsewhere. It is partly that the legato, which sounds 'alright' in a general sort of way, is found wanting when you start to listen critically to individual notes, where the emission is not sufficiently even. So it's two developments that are wanted before the next solo recital: a scrupulous evenness in the production of all individual notes, and a greater variety of expression and colour. That is a tall order maybe, but solo recitals expose a singer to this sort of scrutiny.
For the mixed recital I can see no justification at all. It is not as though we were hard up for Mozart just at present, and such a collection of bits and pieces wants either a bright idea behind it or performances that can claim at least some sort of distinction. Joanna Borowska has a likeable voice and, having up to then sung mostly the lighter soprano's parts, she makes a good showing in the Queen of Night's vengeance aria. Andrea Martin, whom we hear nominally in five roles, makes equally dull characters out of all of them. The conducting imparts no spring or breath of life to the merely competent playing, and the acoustic of the Cosi fan tutte excerpts is over-reverberant.'