NCH, Dublin

Leading Swedish mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter appeared twice in Ireland during the 1990s, in Handel's Messiah(a performance with ampflication at the O2, then called the Point), and in recital at the Belfast Festival.

Her debut at the National Concert Hall on Sunday, given with the Danish period-instruments orchestra, Concerto Copenhagen, was planned as an evening of two halves, one devoted to Bach (Cantata No 35, Geist und Seele wird verwirret, and the aria Vergnügte Ruh'from Cantata 170) the other to Handel (a selection of four arias).

And an evening of two halves is what it turned out to be, but of halves which were unfortunately unequal in more ways than one.

The dividing point had nothing to do with the change from Bach to Handel. For most of the evening, the singer's tone was strangely variable, often weak, both undernourished in sound and low in volume. The vocal lines were uneven, sometimes even choppy, as you find in styles of declamation where whole words get lost in transmission.

Yes, there were fleeting moments when the singer people had come to hear was in evidence. But for most of the evening they were few and far between.

Then, in the last item on the programme, Resign thy club from Handel's Hercules, the singing came fully to life, dramatic, incisive, insightful, everything coming across with clarity in spite of the sometimes extreme dynamic contrasts in the singing.

The transformation developed further in the two encores, arias from Handel's Ariodante and Serse, where there was a beauty of tone and a fine control of line that were all the more striking for their absence earlier in the evening.

Concerto Copenhagen's partnership, with Lars Ulrik Mortensen directing from the keyboard, was sharp-angled and lively, as it was also in the purely orchestral items, the overture from Bach's Suite No 4 (sounding a little naked without the usual trumpets and drums), and two concerti grossi from Handel's Op. 6.

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