It has become preferable that singers pursue specific conceptual themes or parameters for a Handel arias album, although devoting an entire disc solely to Cleopatra from Giulio Cesare does not instantly appear like a good idea: in lazily researched recitals her most famous arias have become clichéd, overdone and over-familiar. Moreover, such a decision to focus exclusively on only one role reduces the public perception of comparably compelling characters such as Cesare and Sesto into passengers of merely subsidiary value. Last November, in advance of their participation in a production of Giulio Cesare at the Palais Garnier, frequent collaborators Natalie Dessay and Emmanuelle Haïm recorded a programme that contains not only the usual suspects (“V’adoro, pupille”, “Se pietà”, “Piangerò”, “Da tempeste”) but also four of the Egyptian Queen’s other arias, two of which are premiere recordings of intriguing soliloquies that Handel composed fully in his autograph manuscript but then decided (rightly) to replace with entirely different and more famous material: he supplanted the animated heroic aria “Per dar vita all’idol mio” with the tragic lament “Se pietà” to convey Cleopatra’s desperate fear yet heroism as Cesare flees to fight the henchmen of her brother Tolomeo, and the mournful siciliano “Troppo crudeli siete” was scrapped in favour of the bittersweet “Piangerò” to illustrate the imprisoned Queen’s pessimism before the lieto fine is eventually established. If nothing else, this album enables us to hear both final thoughts and discarded drafts consecutively, and allows us the chance to decide whether or not Handel was correct to sacrifice two excellent climactic arias in favour of radically different ideas offering more potent dramatic sublimity.

The performances are consistently attractive. The Parnassus scene in which the disguised Cleopatra seduces Cesare (“V’adoro, pupille”) is unabridged and interpreted rapturously; Sonia Prina makes a cameo as Cesare in the duet “Caro! Bella!”. Le Concert d’Astrée’s accomplished playing extends to the Overture and two bellicose sinfonias, the latter of which provide zesty variety to proceedings. Dessay’s admirable endeavour to be emotive in “Se pietà” falls curiously flat; the dramatic atmosphere of the scene is better captured in “Piangerò” (with the flute pleasingly more audible than in some performances). With refreshing candour, Emmanuelle Haïm and Yves Castagnet are credited as the composers of Dessay’s florid embellishments, which whizz beyond the parameters of taste and style only infrequently: the end of the B section and the cadenza during “Piangerò” give rise to unwelcome vocal vertigo but some might love the predictably over-indulgent treatment of “Da tempeste”. Nevertheless, Dessay’s singing is never less than dazzling, and the stratospheric ornaments in the da capo of “Venere bella” are softly sensual. Despite instinctive reservations about its contrived strategy, this album holds together pretty well thanks to Dessay’s gorgeous voice, Haïm’s experienced direction of her capable orchestra and, of course, the modest matter of getting inside the mind of an inspired composer.