Be afraid. Be very afraid… Cecilia Bartoli’s on a mission: her new album

Be afraid. Be very afraid…  Cecilia Bartoli is set to eradicate evil. No, she's not going out to exorcise the horrors of the crossover, but releasing a new cd called Mission with the Swiss group I Barocchisti  directed by Diego Fasolis.

And that's it.

Decca, with their usual marketing cunning, aren't giving away more than this at present. Obviously hoping for a viral campaign they have created a site where it will be possible to enter clues taken from ‘webisodes' about the recording of the disc.

The first is here, with Bartoli arriving at the recording venue, being hounded by a TV crew. Each clip contains a clue which, when entered in the site, will allow access to ‘secret content' of ‘Mission' – like who the composers are, one hopes. There are eight clues in all, and the first is… oh I won't spoil it.

In the past we've seen Bartoli's hair, Anna Magnani-style, fighting to escape from hairpins and elastics; we've seen it disciplined into a tight ponytail; and, au naturel, like a brown-haired Bernadette Peters. Now the hair has had it: Bald Bartoli.

As long as Fasolis' head doesn't start rotating at 360°, and the Barocchisti don't start vomiting green slime, we'll be alright with Santa Cecilia.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.