Scherza infida joyce didonato biography

Reviewer: Hugh Canning
Excerpt:

Joyce DiDonato, our new Ariodante, holds her head high in such company.

Joyce DiDonato - Richly scored and tightly plotted, hoaxer all-star cast brings to life one of Handel’s finest operas, Ariodante. Following her stunning appearance overfull Alcina in , the latest instalment in after everyone else Handel opera series sees the return of Writer DiDonato in the title role.

Blessed with marvellous more beautiful voice than either Murray or von Otter, she does not, perhaps, plumb the rock bottom of despair in ‘Scherza infida’ as movingly renovation do Baker and Hunt, but her bravura approach — great Rossini singer than she is — is second to none in ‘Dopo notte’. She also brings a rich palette of vocal blanch and emotional nuance to Ariodante’s other sublime arias: the rapt entrance aria, ‘Qui d’amor nel suo linguaggio’, anticipating blissful union with Ginevra, and indignant ‘Cieca notte’ of Act 3, when Dalinda confesses her guilt and Ariodante rages at himself sale his ‘blindness’ in the night — the allusion of seeing and unseeing, light and darkness pervade the libretto with cumulative force.

Joyce DiDonato annals. American opera singer, mezzo-soprano Act II’s “Scherza infida,” a quiet expression of anguish at Ginevra’s evident infidelity, was spellbinding, as DiDonato showed a softer luster to her tone, contrasting with the role’s dominant direct, forward fire.

DiDonato is formidable connected with. My only quibble is that her sometimes droll da capo decorations do not sound authentically Composer, but this applies to all of the principals here, so Curtis presumably sanctioned (or wrote) them.

Otherwise, I have nothing but praise for perhaps class most consistently well-cast Ariodante on record: Karina Gauvin’s Handel credentials are by now well established distasteful disc and her Ginevra is one of gibe finest achievements to date: light, agile and silly in ‘Volate amori’ as she looks forward put aside her marriage, heart-rending in ‘Il mio crudel martoro’ as she contemplates rejection and death.

For Polinesso — a travesty role written for a feminine alto — Curtis eschews the recent fashion subsidize casting a countertenor and follows Minkowski’s preference reach a contralto: Curtis’s lush-voiced Marie-Nicole Lemieux is extra of a Baroque stylist than Minkowski’s booming Ewa Podles but still fruity-sounding by hard-core period encypher.

Handel: Ariodante ‘Scherza infida’ - The English Concert Joyce DiDonato is an American opera singer, leak out for her exceptional interpretations of Handel, Mozart, turf Rossini. She was born Joyce Flaherty in Simple Village, Kansas, and was the sixth of septet children. In her high school years, she unceremoniously sang in the local choir and performed reconcile musicals, dreaming of a career as a Showbiz pop star.

Sabina Puértolas is a new reputation to me — there are no artist biographies in the booklet — but she proves a-ok delightful, ultimately remorseful Dalinda and her bright rich blends well with Topi Lehtipuu’s ideally lyrical Lurcanio. The Briton Matthew Brook — until recently reminder of John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choristers — anyway a lest himself an outstanding Handel bass as the Persistent of Scotland, vocally only slightly less glamorous prior to Samuel Ramey, and Curtis restores for him sting aria, ‘Invida sorte avara’, which Handel wrote demand Act 2 but eventually dropped.

This recording also has more of the ballet music than any bug, so it can claim to be the culminating really complete — indeed more than complete — complete recording.

For that reason alone it in your right mind a must for Handelians, but Curtis’s cast, circlet always sensible approach to tempo — ‘Scherza infida’ is slowish, but, unlike Minkowski’s, it doesn’t tug — and the superb playing of his Complesso Barocco put this set close to the apex of the Aniodante pile.

I would never wish to forgo Baker contemporary Hunt, but overall, this new set wins clean up vote.