MUSIC / Olaf Bar - Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

The precision required by the Lieder singer's art demands that technique subjugate emotion, and the stiffness of Olaf Bar's stage presence underlines the strain: any gesture which might suggest momentary abandon is quickly checked. Still, the voice is lovely, softer-grained and more supple than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's. Bar's programme was a kind of trip through the history of the German Lied, via the familiar points from Mozart through Beethoven, Brahms and Wolf to Strauss. There were signs of a willingness to relax for expressive effect - an ecstatic sigh at the climax of Mozart's 'An Chloe', a conversational turn of phrase in Beethoven's 'Adelade'; and Bar makes use of a broader vibrato than some might like. The pervading tone was of melancholy - the baritone's eternal sadness, perhaps, at not having the tenor's open-hearted exuberance. A few moments of vocal imprecision failed to dampen the audience's enthusiasm, and Bar and his accompanist, Geoffrey Parsons, returned for three encores. Parsons, as ever, was exemplary, his self-effacing technique providing exact support and rhythmic vitality. Has any pianist in history ever been so closely associated with so many great voices?