MARIO MALAGNINI, the Italian tenor first brought here by Barra O Tuama ten years ago, was back at the National Concert Hall on Saturday, delighting a packed audience with his firm line and vibrant, albeit somewhat baritonal, tones.

Even in the slightest of Italian and Mexican ballads he's still master of the steady line and the only flaw in his armour is a hint of constriction when he endeavours to sing softly. His two operatic solos, Che gelida manina and Nessun dorma, were particularly well delivered.

Romanian soprano AnnaLouise Bogza impressed initially with incisive attack and cleanly articulated runs in Donna Anna's Non mi dir and the Leonora/Luna duet from Il trovatore. But when she increased the pressure for two Puccini arias her phrasing lost length and her highest notes lost pitch. She returned to something like her earlier form in arias from Verdi's Il trovatore and La forza del destino, but here she lacked the ability to float her top notes as asked for in the scores.

Nicholas Folwell, an imaginative singing actor with a facility for intelligent vocal colouring, also suffered from intonational problems, especially in his fast music. But he declaimed Rigoletto's Pari siamo and Renato's Eri tu splendidly and warmed my sentimental old heart with his renderings of Stephen Adams's Thora and Nirvana. Brenda Hurley, currently on the music staff at Netherlands opera, supported strongly at the piano.

David Carmody drew some refined singing from the combined forces of the Cameron Singers and Enchiradis Treis, but not in Handel's Hallelujah chorus, where the sopranos had difficulty on high and the ensemble was far from perfect.