Ruth Ann Swenson made something of a sensation with her brilliantly sung and vivaciously acted Semele at the last Covent Garden revival, under Sir Charles Mackerras, and her success is happily recaptured on the opening tracks here, beginning, aptly enough, with ‘Endless pleasure’. This piece is charmingly done, with neat timing and fluent ornamental singing, and ‘Myself I shall adore’ is deftly phrased, with some lovely light coloratura. But in the Sleep Song there is no want of sensuality – nor indeed in ‘V’adoro pupille’, the song where the disguised Cleopatra lures Julius Caesar; no one could fail to be seduced by this, though possibly the ornamentation in the da capo suggests that she is trying a little too hard. I have heard Cleopatras express grief and passion more powerful than Swenson’s in ‘Se pieta’, but this performance, almost as if she was resigned to her fate, is very poised and very beautiful. The Handel numbers end with an agile and spirited account of Cleopatra’s song at her moment of triumph.
The voice itself is large, bright and musical. It occasionally hardens a little in the upper register, and it is not especially varied: which I found concerned me more in Mozart than in Handel. Still, it is a very deeply felt account of ‘Traurigkeit’ – and this is particularly finely and sensitively accompanied by Mackerras and the Age of Enlightenment players. I enjoyed ‘Martern aller Arten’ slightly less; there are one or two imperfections in the obbligato playing, and I wasn’t wholly convinced by Mackerras’s interpretation of the curious ad libitum indications in the orchestral music (slowing down in this way, each time the phrase occurs, becomes tautological); Swenson has something of the necessary grand manner but the tone needs more variety and the words, in particular the consonants, would have benefited from clearer articulation. She and Mackerras, incidentally, include two passages (of 11 bars and 15 bars) that Mozart cut (at 3‘53‘ and 8‘44‘): it’s good to hear them, although Mozart was certainly wise to omit them – whatever criticisms have been made of this aria, no one has ever complained that it was too short. The concert aria is done with due drama (again, sharper articulation of the words would have been welcome) and the one from Lucio Silla is well characterized and the perfectly placed staccato coloratura is a delight. A very welcome disc, with attractive music sung by an unusually promising and already accomplished artist, attentively accompanied.'