Handel Rinaldo

Danielle de Niese - Handel: Arias
Danielle de Niese / Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 357 MB | Full Artwork: 172 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Decca 475 8746 DH | Country/Year: Europe 2007
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Opera, Vocal

"…De Niese is discreet in her ornamentation of the da capo arias; in the laments, she is particularly sensitive, avoiding inappropriate vocal displays out of character with the grief expressed in the music. William Christie conducts Les Arts Florissants in a bravura performance that's both crisp and nuanced. Decca's sound is deep, warm, and clean. De Niese's spectacular recital should be of interest to fans of Baroque opera, and of intelligent, emotionally honest coloratura singing." ~AMG

Bridget Cunningham marks St Patrick’s Day with a new harpsichord CD that gives a glimpse into Handel’s fascinating time in Dublin. In 1741 at the age of 56, following a financially difficult time in London and with fashions turning against Italian opera, Handel went to Dublin for 9 months – a thriving musical city and the 2nd largest in the British Isles after London. The story of this fascinating trip is told in both music and detailed accompanying notes by harpsichordist and musicologist Bridget Cunningham. This disc is part of Cunningham’s ongoing series with the ensemble London Early Opera, which has already seen releases of several volumes of Handel’s music, including Handel in Italy and Handel at Vauxhall.

LA VOIX DES RÊVES - Greatest Moments in Concert” (available on DVD & Blu Ray) features video footage from a number of occasions and venues – including items from a concert given among the crystal chandeliers of the splendid Galerie des Glaces in the palace of Versailles, and works by Handel and Vivaldi performed in another jewel of French Baroque architecture, the sumptuously decorated Chapelle de la Trinité in Lyon.

Senesino, the voice that inspired Handel's greatest operas showpiece arias by Handel, Lotti, Albinoni, Porpora and Scarlatti. One of the truly outstanding voices of today, star countertenor Andreas Scholl celebrates one of the 18th Century's greatest vocal superstars, the remarkable male alto known as Senesino. Senesino's place in history was secured by his extraordinary association with Handel, who after travelling to Dresden to hear him, brought him to London to join his Italian Opera Company, where he was greatly celebrated by the public, and much admired by the ladies.

Following the triumphant success of Rinaldo, Handel’s third London opera, Teseo (1713), was intended to make the still unusual genre of opera more attractive to the English public. That in fact Handel was able to latch on to the success of Rinaldo was due, likewise, to the many stage effects and a richness of musical ideas. At the same time Teseo is in many respects an exception, since the Italian libretto of Nicola Haym is based on a French model, and therefore retains the structure of five acts which was usual in France. And Handel proved that apparently he too had grappled with the Franch opera tradition. As an exception, one finds forms here which do not fit into the standard patterns of secco recitative and da capo aria.

One of opera’s most outspoken and impassioned personalities, Joyce DiDonato reminds us with her new albumIn War and Peace that music “soothes turmoil, threatens power and the status quo, and gloriously exalts the spirit”. Her selection of arias demonstrates how powerfully Baroque opera explores the extremes of human nature – from the tumult of Handel’s Scenes of Horror, Scenes of Woeto Purcell’s descent into despair, Dido’s Lament. Joyce’s longtime partners, the spirited Italian Baroque ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro, join her on this unique journey through sublime, challenging music; through chaos transformed by the eternal search for serenity.