With Zurich Orchestra La Scintilla. A Vancouver Recital Society presentation. At the Orpheum Theatre on Sunday, October 2

Cecilia Bartoli owes her top-rung operatic status to a one-in-a-billion voice-small but robust, with a focused sound, top to bottom, and remarkable agility-and to an astute choice of repertoire. She advocates the old, the unusual, and the strangely ignored. "Where on earth has THAT been all my life?" is the question you ask when she brings out another recording of baroque rarities. She's also acquired a reputation as a wonderful canceller. She pulled out of last week's engagement in Toronto because of illness, thus upping the ante around whether she'd fulfill her obligations to the Vancouver Recital Society. If you were in the vicinity of the Orpheum round about half-past 5 last Sunday afternoon, and heard the loud huzzahs, you'll know how it all worked out.

Bartoli, and the ultra-snazzy Zurich-based Orchestra La Scintilla, performed works from her new CD Opera Proibita. In fact, these arias are properly from oratorios, all written by three composers who worked in Rome at the beginning of the 18th century, a time when opera languished on the shady side of papal approval. The recording is swell. The live performance was stunning.

Rather than catalogue the virtues of specific pieces, let's just say that the concert, stem to stern, was an object lesson in Doing It Right. Each aria was a masterpiece of storytelling. Any singer could have taken a page from Bartoli's expressiveness, her powerhouse presence, and her out-and-out show-biz savvy. And such singing. Is there anyone who can do as much as Bartoli with a single breath, whether she's applying it to glorious legato phrases or to rapid-fire runs? The band, likewise, was a marvel. The performers' median age looked to be about 17, and they had at it with a vigour, intelligence, and subtlety that was absolutely on par with that of the main attraction. It was such a treat to see musicians so thoroughly engaged, so on top of their game, and having so much plain ol' fun. Not for nothing is it called "playing".

Leila Getz, the Recital Society's artistic director, warned the audience at the concert's beginning that Bartoli hadn't been well, but was prepared to give it the proverbial college try. Sixteen arias later (there were three encores), when the tale was told and "happily ever after" written, the audience hurried into the rain, eager to get to their Italian-English dictionaries and check on the word everyone wanted to say: megawatt.