|
|
 |
 Delirio: Handel's Italian Cantatas Product Description
Elements Featured On Delirio: Handel's Italian Cantatas CD
Detailed Work Information Delirio: Handel's Italian Cantatas
Delirio: Handel's Italian Cantatas Customer Reviews
| Average Rating: |  |
|
| Ideal Blend on Handel's Prodigious Italian Cantatas
French soprano Natalie Dessay has had to endure two major surgeries to remove nodes that were preventing her from fully reaching her stratospheric, two-and-a-half octave range. This supple dexterity is showcased nicely albeit briefly in her soubrettish turn as Morgana on the 2000 recording of the 1999 William Christie-conducted Paris Opera production of Handel's "Alcina". She also intertwined flawlessly with soprano Veronique Gens on "Ahi, nelle sorte umane" from the 2002 recording of Handel's Arcadian duets. Here, again under Emmanuelle Haim's direction of the period-authentic Le Concert d'Astree, Dessay performs in a deeper tone with more heft and color at the lower end, and the vocal change, if anything, has improved her interpretative skills in realizing the pastoral mythologies set to Handel's wondrous music composed during his youthful Italian sojourn when he was in his twenties. Equipped with a cleaner, crisper voice than Cecilia Bartoli, Dessay produces a similar emotional intensity on the two cantatas featured here. Both written in 1707, they become vehicles for her to carry her own unique power and eloquence. Haim sets the stage beautifully by allowing her ensemble to play Handel's opening sinfonia with spirited solo turns on each of the featured instruments - oboe, cello, recorder and violin (played with virtuosity by Stefanie-Marie Degand). Five minutes later, Dessay enters and takes command of the first cantata, "Delirio amoroso" with the high point likely being the stunning aria, "Lascia omai le brune vele" with oboist Patrick Beaugiraud providing lively accompaniment during the key obbligato. The second cantata, "Mi palpita il cor", is a more somber piece highlighted by Dessay's particularly adept performance of the two arias - the first about the possibility of rejection from a lover, "Ho tanti affanni in petto" and the concluding one, an about-face sung with complete abandon, about the gleeful anticipation of love, "Se un di m'adora". Regardless, the disc's unequivocal peak is the aria which bridges the two cantatas, "Qui l'augel da pianta in pinata" from "Aci, Galatea e Polifemo", where Dessay astonishes with her virtuosity in one of Aci's most dramatic passages. Overall this is a superb recording that matches a stellar voice growing more burnished over time with an impeccable ensemble. Handelians should be pleased.
By Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA, USA) |
| Have you heard this album? |
 |
|
Delirio: Handel's Italian Cantatas Product Details
| CD Universe Part number | 7008735 |
| Label | Virgin Classics |
| Orig Year | 1/9/2006 |
| Catalog number | 32624 |
| Discs | 1 |
| Release Date | Jan 10, 2006 |
| Recording Time | 1:2 |
Customers Who Bought Delirio: Handel's Italian Cantatas Also Bought
Delirio: Handel's Italian Cantatas Other Ideas
Muse Surmounted: Florence Foster Jenkins and Eleven of Her Rivals, C.F. Abel: Six Sonatas, Op. 2, Schubert: Songs Transcribed by Liszt, Vol. 3, Couperin: Barricades Mystérieuses, Pièces De Clavecin, Atli Heimir Sveinsson: Timinn Og Vatnid, Portrait d'Iris: François Couperin, Charpentier: Médée / Christie, Feldman, Bona, Boulin, et al, Modern Primitive
|
Related Links
|
Share this Product