"I just love recitals," says Bejun Mehta as his concert draws to a close. "I mean, they give me the opportunity not to sing Handel." Mehta, a wacky American, is generally regarded as the hot new countertenor on the block. His Handel performances made him, as they say. To prove how, he proffered an exquisite aria from Tamerlano as an encore.

Elsewhere, however, you felt Mehta was rebelling against type-casting, offering us a programme of Mozart, Schubert, Wolf and English songs, stuff you don't expect a countertenor to sing. Slouching round the platform, his hands stuffed in the trousers pockets of his khaki suit, he has that rare ability to make you forget the rest of the audience so you feel he's engaging you in a private conversation. Mozart's Die Verschweigung sounds like the latest gossip. A woman sitting in a side seat is singled out as the recipient of Gerald Finzi's passionate The Sigh. There is some strange diction, and a countertenor sounds wrong in Wolf, but Mehta is such a wonderful communicator that you forgive his flaws.