'Singing Mozart is second nature to her,' enthuses Rattle of Magdalena KoOená. 'Each woman on each track is a completely distinct personality.' Promotional hype? Well, in hyper-Beckmesserish mode you could say her legato in 'Per pietà' is not quite seamless, the tempo for 'Deh vieni' a touch too jaunty. But this is barrel-scraping. If anyone has recorded a lovelier Mozart recital in recent years, we've yet to hear it. In her early thirties, KoOená is now consummate mistress of her art. Her liquid high mezzo, with its easy upward extension, combines warmth with the bloom and freshness of youth, while her coloratura, on display in 'Al desio di chi t'adora', is as brilliant and expressive as Bartoli's, yet without the Italian diva's intrusive aspirates.
Beyond this, Rattle's claim is hard to refute.
Cherubino (whose 'Voi che sapete' is sung in an embellished version published in 1810) and Dorabella (a blithe, flighty 'È amore un ladroncino') are the only roles here in KoOená's stage repertoire. But she 'lives' each of these wide-ranging characters intensely, from the remorseful Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito (sorrow etched into the texture of her voice) via the tenderness and anguish of Ilia in Idomeneo to a delightfully sly, knowing Despina. The vivid, tangy accompaniments from Rattle and the OAE go well beyond mere good style, with a classy basset-horn obbligato from Anthony Pay in the Vitellia aria. Fortepianist Jos van Immerseel is an equally sympathetic partner in an impassioned yet intimate performance of Ch'iomi scordi di te.