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In almost every way this album is typical Bryn: exuberant, cheeky and totally unpredictable. The choice of repertoire blends some of the singer's key roles with those he has never sung, concert arias with Mozart's arrangements of music by other people, and even has an aria that Mozart started but was completed by another composer.
Some of the tracks are totally outstanding and immaculate – largely the arias that are new to Bryn – but unfortunately, in a few cases Terfel is singing characters that he has now moved on from and would do well to stay clear of.
Figaro's second aria is particularly heavy where levity and wit are called for, and Leporello's Catalogue Aria is also surprisingly leaden. Terfel seems to bring the same colour to nearly every item on the disc, and in the case of the lighter, younger roles – Figaro, Leporello, Papageno – it doesn't quite work, even though his singing is always secure and the voice is in prime condition.
Sir Charles Mackerras's conducting of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is, for my taste, on the slow side, holding up the slower second movement of the Catalogue Aria, Papageno's first aria and the Guglielmo-Dorabella duet from Così fan tutte (which nevertheless features Christine Rice in excellent form, hopefully an indication of how good her performance of the character in the theatre will be). It's odd to mix slow tempi with vibrato-less strings, because the singers occasionally sound unsupported and the accompaniment is sometimes strangely empty.
Not so the trio from Così, which has rarely sounded so sublime before: the orchestral part is nicely focussed here, and all three singers (Rice and Terfel with Miah Persson as an impeccable Fiordiligi) perform with sensitivity to the text and vocal line. Don Alfonso is clearly going to be one of Terfel's greatest roles: I hope he grabs it with both hands as soon as possible (he'd surely fit into the Jonathan Miller production with élan).
The other role in which Terfel excels here is the Count in Figaro. His aria has an amazingly fiery attack whilst showing poignancy when necessary, and the duet with Persson's Susanna is pretty good too (though again, slightly on the slow side). And 'Diggi, daggi, schurry, murry' from Bastien und Bastienne is worth the price of the disc alone: very exciting, Terfel really brings the character of the piece to life.
The sublime Papageno-Pamina duet from The Magic Flute showcases the high B flats of Miah Persson, who almost steals the show at this part, and the Don's arias from Don Giovanni are both excellent. It's also nice to see some less usual repertoire, with the dark fast section of 'Aspri rimorsi atroci' catching one's attention particularly (though I could have done without the cat's mewing in a duet by Benedikt E Schack that Mozart only orchestrated).
In all, Bryn has done himself proud with this special release for the Mozart year, and even where some of the performances don't quite make the grade, the disc is daring and the performance committed.
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