The idea of building a Handel opera recital around a particular singer in Handel's company may work especially well if the artist's voice resembles that of the original singer. I am not, however, quite convinced that Lorraine Hunt is a latter-day Durastanti. Handel composed for Margherita Durastanti over more than 25 years. She sang several of his big, male heroic roles as well as a few as prima donna, several in travesti and finally some rather lesser ones. She began as a soprano and later slipped down to mezzo. The predominance of male and heroic roles in her repertory (coupled with the fact that a contemporary described her as ''coarse and masculine'') does rather suggest a sturdy and focused voice of some power, as indeed does the style of much of her music. Lorraine Hunt's singing, often beautiful and refined, seems to me at almost the opposite pole: her strengths lie in her singing of expressive and gentle music, in the delicacy of her phrasing (listen to the opening number, a sprightly piece from Agrippina), when conveying of pathos. The impetuous and aggressive young Sextus, Pompey's son, ought surely not sound so feminine.
In the past I have chiefly enjoyed Hunt in oratorio, where a dramatic edge matters less, and sometimes not at all; and her singing here is not often very varied in manner or operatic in style—the swagger and the grandeur of the two Arianna arias elude her, as does the joyous spirit of the last of the Sextus pieces from Giulio Cesare. That said, there are exceptionally beautiful readings of ''Ombra cara'' from Radamisto, deeply felt, at a good, measured tempo, and perhaps above all of the really lovely aria from Ottone, which shows her at her very best. She ornaments the music a good deal, though not always with taste; in several she plays havoc with the shape of Handel's line, and in one (from Arianna) her elaboration involves the destruction of Handel's opening (and recurring) motif. Nicholas McGegan's accompaniments are characteristic, with their slightly mannered gait, abrupt phrase-endings and sometimes spongy strings, and Sextus's ''L'angue offeso'' seems too speedy for an Andante and indeed for the sense of the music. But it's a generous disc, with some very good numbers and several rare ones.
The disc from Nathalie Stutzmann ranges promiscuously across a variety of original singers, most of them castratos but also including Durastanti (the poor note in the booklet here neglects to mention singers and doesn't even name the role for which each aria was composed). It begins superbly, leaping in with the magnificent ''Fammi combattere'', sung here in a truly grand manner—as indeed everything is, for Stutzmann, although still under 30, has a commanding style and a tremendous technique allied to a very powerful contralto. It is not unlike the traditional English oratorio contralto, up to a point, but more resonant, clearer, and stronger in attack. Her manner is that of a modern singer, not a self-conscious period stylist, but she has a real feeling for Handel. She is an exceptionally rhythmic singer and produces immense fire in the quick numbers among them the big outburst from Partenope ''Furibondo'', and the first of the two from Floridante, as well as parts of the Mad Scene from Orlando, in which too, she is very successful at conveying, musically, the character's slipping into madness through her softening of the voice. There are also some pathetic arias of a high order, sung with no less distinction: the devastatingly beautiful ''Cara sposa'' from Rinaldo, the second of the Floridante arias (one of Handel's finest siciliana-style pieces), where the hushed tone in the da capo is wonderfully telling, and the Radamisto aria ''Ombra cara'' again, whose hauntingly sung ending concludes the disc very movingly. I thought ''Va tacito'' from Giulio Cesare a shade unsubtle, but the other aria from that work is charmingly rendered, with an appealing swing to the rhythm. Ornamentation is mostly tasteful again, there is some rewriting that goes too far but no serious damage is done. The accompaniments are done with more vigour than refinement, but serve excellently in support: in many ways a thrilling disc.'