Cecilia Bartoli can be strident, mannered and exhausting to listen to. But this recital was a pleasant surprise. She wasn't promoting her latest CD, only showed us one frock - and came across as genuine.

Not that the mannerisms had gone. There were still times when - arms and shoulders braced, head thrown back, eyes and mouth stretched open - she did her imitation of an All Black doing the haka. But, while her little-girl-having-fun stage persona never flagged, she showed an infectious enthusiasm for the music.

She was conducted by Antonio Pappano, who knows how to get the best out of his starriest soloists. Bartoli's numbers were well-chosen, her musical intelligence and powers of communication coming over in Haydn's dramatic Scena di Berenice, Rossini's lamenting Giusto Ciel and, especially, Mozart's Voi Che Sapete. In Ch'io Me Scordi di Te? from Mozart's Idomeneo, she spun out daringly quiet pianissimos; in Parto Parto, from La Clemenza di Tito, she shared the spotlight with Nicholas Rodwell's beautifully fluid clarinet.

Elsewhere her larger-than-life delivery couldn't hide one problem - her tone, so lustrous in mid-range, seldom opens out enough to give the climactic high notes their due. But she saved some good ones for her final number, the martial Riedi al Soglio from Rossini's Zelmira, and for the ubiquitous encore Non Piu Mesta. Maybe there is a reason for all the fuss, after all.