Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Royal Albert Hall, London ***

When two of today's most exciting performers make their first appearance at the Proms, you expect something very special. This wasn't, however, quite the night that one had anticipated. The debutants in question were both French, conductor Louis Langrée and Natalie Dessay, who is said to be the greatest coloratura soprano of our time.

Initially it seemed that circumstances were against the pair. The Albert Hall was so stuffy that the OAE abandoned their dinner jackets at half time and dripped their way to the end of the concert in shirt sleeves. Langrée opened with Haydn's "Trauer" Symphony, admirably capturing its reined-in tension, its Bach-like austerity and its brief efflorescences into a pained lyricism. But he had to contend with mobile phones, one of which started squeaking Bach at the end of the symphony's slow movement. The finale seethed with understandable rage.

When Dessay appeared to sing a selection of Mozart's most difficult arias, she looked terribly nervous, and cleared her throat a lot both during and between numbers. Essaying Martern Aller Arten from Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, she used a score, yet fluffed an entry. The extended lines of Vorrei Spiegarvi, O Dio exposed a beat in the voice. Elsewhere, however, there were moments of genuine magic. Her voice has a diamantine brilliance and at times her technical assurance astounds.

After the interval both she and Langrée seemed considerably more relaxed. He closed the proceedings with a performance of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony which swirled off in the finale into Dionysiac jubilation.