Cecilia Bartoli Maria Opera

Correction Appended

CECILIA BARTOLI just may have found the role of a lifetime: the diva Maria Malibran, who was born in 1808 and died in 1836.

“Malibran was the Madonna of her age,” Ms. Bartoli said recently from Paris, a stop on her grand European tour of dozens of concerts showcasing the music and personality of this short-lived star. Part of the caravan is a rolling museum (or truck) filled with Malibran memorabilia — letters, posters, stage jewelry, pictures, collectibles — that Ms. Bartoli, 41, has been amassing since the start of her career.

Her new CD, “Maria,” issued by Decca in October in both a limited edition and an “oversize deluxe hardcover,” paints a vivid portrait in song, photos and hundreds of pages of text in three languages. When supplies run out, the music will be released in simpler, more conventional packaging.

That could be soon. A law unto herself, Ms. Bartoli has created best sellers with CDs devoted to unlikely fare like Vivaldi, Gluck, Salieri and what she has called “Forbidden Opera,” the repertory of highly dramatic sacred oratorios written in Rome from 1703 to 1710, when opera as such (secular, frivolous) was banned by the pope. “Maria” has started stronger than any of those. Universal Classics, Decca’s parent company, reports that the album racked up the strongest first-week sales of any Bartoli album since “Mozart Portraits” in 1994 and shot straight to the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s classical chart. This showing is especially remarkable because Ms. Bartoli has no American dates on her calendar this season.

The celebrations continue. On March 24 she is to give an elaborate 200th birthday party for Malibran at the Salle Pleyel in Paris: a recital with the violinist Maxim Vengerov and the pianist Lang Lang in the late morning, a concert performance of Rossini’s “Cenerentola” in the afternoon and a gala concert in the evening.

The seeds for this Malibran campaign were planted by Christopher Raeburn, the Decca producer who put Ms. Bartoli on the map when she was barely 20. Her first Rosina, in Rossini’s “Barbiere di Siviglia,” had been a triumph. As it happened, Decca needed a Rosina for a new recording. Mr. Raeburn gave Ms. Bartoli the job and a portrait of Malibran.

“He told me that she was a great mezzo-soprano of the 19th century whose career had started with Rosina,” she said. “And I thought: ‘Oh, nice. Nice picture. Interesting story.’ ”

As Ms. Bartoli was later to learn, Malibran’s father, the celebrated Andalusian tenor Manuel García, was the original Count Almaviva in “Barbiere” (which was first called “Almaviva, or Useless Precaution”). The premiere, in 1816 in Rome, was not a success. Rossini later told the story that little Maria had come around to comfort him, promising that when she grew up, she would sing the opera everywhere, but never in Rome, even if the pope himself were to beg her on bended knee.

Though Malibran died at 28 (after a fall from a horse; she was pregnant at the time), her biography could fuel a whole series of romance novels. Along with rest of the talented García clan, she conquered New York in a season that included the American premiere of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” with the librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, in attendance. (She played the peasant bride Zerlina opposite her father as Don Giovanni, a baritone part no tenor would dare poach today.)

The musical capitals of Europe heard Malibran as Romeo in Bellini’s “Capuleti e i Montecchi,” as both the queen and her son Arsace in Rossini’s “Semiramide,” as both Desdemona and (less happily) the Moor in Rossini’s “Otello.” In Milan she defied the censor, singing politically incendiary lines in Donizetti’s “Maria Stuarda” exactly as written.

Dancing ballet in some unremembered opera, Malibran faltered. But such lapses were rare. Wherever she traveled, the public adored her. She was the toast of Paris, lionized by Paganini and George Sand. Composers — her father among them — wrote operas for her. True, all of them have been forgotten, but the Zurich Opera House is reviving one, Fromental Halévy’s “Clari,” for Ms. Bartoli this season. (“For me and for Halévy,” Ms. Bartoli corrected.)

On occasion Malibran even wrote her own material. “Maria” features samples from every nook of Malibran’s repertory, including her own “Rataplan,” sung to the spine-tingling rat-a-tat-tat of a drum. “Malibran was a fine composer,” Ms. Bartoli said. “She knew how to get to an audience. Everywhere I’ve sung that piece, it has made a huge impression.”

Correction: January 27, 2008

An article on Jan. 6 about Cecilia Bartoli’s tribute to Maria Malibran referred incorrectly to her performances in Bellini’s “Capuleti e i Montecchi.” She was Romeo; she did not sing the parts of both Romeo and Juliet.