Handel Arias
An impressive recital of countertenor arias – bar the ornamentation
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: George Frideric Handel
Genre:
Opera
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Magazine Review Date: 2/2011
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 72
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: HMC902077
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Amadigi di Gaula, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Freiburg Baroque Orchestra George Frideric Handel, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Agrippina, Movement: Voi, che udite |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Freiburg Baroque Orchestra George Frideric Handel, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Riccardo Primo, Re di Inghilterra, Movement: Agitato da fiere tempeste |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Freiburg Baroque Orchestra George Frideric Handel, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Tolomeo, Re di Egitto, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Freiburg Baroque Orchestra George Frideric Handel, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Orlando, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Freiburg Baroque Orchestra George Frideric Handel, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Radamisto, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Freiburg Baroque Orchestra George Frideric Handel, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Rodelinda, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Freiburg Baroque Orchestra George Frideric Handel, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Sosarme, Re di Media, Movement: ~ |
George Frideric Handel, Composer
Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Freiburg Baroque Orchestra George Frideric Handel, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor Rosemary Joshua, Soprano |
Author: David Vickers
Mehta’s singing can be astonishingly good, but from time to time lines are devoid of sympathetic appogiaturas, and occasionally embellishments are unstylish – such as a nasty chromatic ornament in an otherwise enthralling performance of Tolomeo’s suicide scene “Stille amare”. He applies more vibrato in slow arias than I would prefer but his precise coloratura in direct faster arias is superb (an energised Orlando’s “Fammi combattere”). The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra plays excellently, particularly during a passacaglia from Rodrigo. Curiously, the most familiar music emerges least convincingly, such as Radamisto’s “Ombra cara”: it sounds beautifully pathetic but utterly lacks the malevolent aspect of the hero’s vow to carry out a vendetta to avenge his supposedly dead wife (Max Emanuel Cencic’s recent recital – Virgin, 8/10 – contained a much more persuasive characterisation). The mad scene from Orlando is grossly over-egged by conductor René Jacobs in some passages and wilfully under-egged in others. The Belgian maverick cannot resist intervening with artificial orchestral effects to reinforce that Orlando has lost his mind (although some of the unexpected softer phrases work a treat). Like no other conductor of Baroque vocal music, he juxtaposes insightful excitement and annoying interference, sometimes even in the same passage of music (eg the stilted mannerisms of an exaggerated “Voi, che udite” from Agrippina). Unstylish organ continuo abounds; but generally, this curate’s egg is one of Jacobs’s better-directed Handel recordings.
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