Composed when Mozart was 12, Bastien und Bastienne is his second opera; he already had La finta semplice, a more sophisticated piece, intended for the opera house, behind him. This, based on Rousseau's Le devin du village, is a German Singspiel with broken dialogue (Mozart was later to add recitatives); it tells a tale of a pair of sweethearts who are brought together after a lovers' tiff by the village soothsayer, Colas. It consists of 15 numbers, mostly quite brief. This performance starts off as if it is going to be too artful by half, with exaggerated accents and an overquick tempo in the Overture, and some self-consciously artful phrasing from Edita Gruberova in some of her early songs. But it turns out pretty happily on the whole: Gruberova's singing has clarity and charm, and her spirited singing and her graceful little touches in the slower arias serve the music well. Listen for example to her lovely shaping of "Er war mir sonst treu und ergeben". The Colas has a ripe, fruity bass; I found the Bastien, Vinson Cole, a shade plain and sometimes dryish, but he too has spirit and clarity of line and diction. In short, I don't think the piece could be much better done; certainly this recording is far to be preferred to the one by Harrer on Philips where all the parts are taken by boys, which makes the work oddly sexless and deprives it of its proper variety of vocal timbre.
