Recordings of Vivaldi operas are extremely scarce, and whether or not that will -- or should -- ever change is an open question. But excellent performances like this one make a good case for the music deserving wider appreciation, and offer a different perspective on a composer who, despite having been one of the greatest operatic composers of his ...
Handel wrote the secular oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The triumph of Time and of Enlightenment) to the text of one of his patrons, Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, in Rome in 1707. The libretto, which doesn't stand up to close logical scrutiny, centers on Beauty, who must choose between self-indulgent Pleasure and the austerity of ...
The quality of the vocal performances in this live recording of Alcina can be strongly correlated to the singers' prior experience in the Baroque repertoire. Contralto Sonia Prina, with a solid background in Baroque opera, is absolutely stellar in the role of Bradamante, a woman impersonating a man in her quest to release her lover from the spells ...
On Sammartini: Sacred Cantatas Naxos' Eighteenth Century Classics series treats listeners to a couple of samplings from a genre in which Giovanni Battista Sammartini, "father of the symphony," was involved to a largely unknown extent, the sacred cantata. Both of these works come from 1751, which must have been a very sad year indeed for this ...
This album of excerpts from Vivaldi's Farnace contains a generous selection of some of the opera's most attractive music, including arias, recitatives, and choruses. Farnace was apparently one of the composer's favorite operas because he mounted numerous productions in various cities, and he wrote six versions of the score, more than of any of his ...
After almost 400 years, you might think Monteverdi's L'Orfeo would have lost its luster. But in the right hands it can still be deeply exciting, allowing you to relive the birth of an electric and emotionally charged new art form. Emmanuelle Haïm's new L'Orfeo, starring Ian Bostridge, is that kind of experience. It combines truly electric ...
This disc is a sampler of Vivaldi discs released by France's Naïve label, and it's highly recommended to listeners who haven't yet given these recordings a try. The group of performers is pan-European, with French singers and Italian instrumentalists especially strongly represented, but a compilation like this brings home how well this label has ...
It's a pleasure to have such an abundance of excellent recordings of Handel operas that were long virtually unknown or available on CD in a single version, if at all. Alan Curtis' stellar recording of Alcina, which joins a respectable number of very fine recordings of the opera, is remarkable for the supple liveliness of his conducting and the ...
Part of the fun of following developments in Baroque music is that, while the press is reduced to trying to work up excitement for the merest scrap of music potentially by Mozart or Beethoven, unknown masterpieces by the likes of Vivaldi are still surfacing with regularity. This release by the energetic French label Naïve (check out the wild cover ...
Harmonie Universelle II is the second of what seems to be an ongoing series of compilations issued by Alia Vox, the label founded by Catalan gambist Jordi Savall and singer Montserrat Figueras. It is labeled "Portrait Alia Vox 2001-2004," but one might even be permitted to speak of greatest hits: the label's sales are approaching the figure of one ...
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![Georg Friedrich Händel: Alcina [SACD]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m42036j92m0_t.jpg)
![Vivaldi: L'Olimpiade [Highlights]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/m67549vpd9w_t.jpg)
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