My Choice for Best Recording of 2008 | Handel: Furore - Mad Scenes From Operas

The Extraordinary Joyce DiDonato | Handel: Furore - Mad Scenes From Operas | George Frideric Handel, Christophe Rousset, ...

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	• Handel: Furore - Mad Scenes From Operas George Frideric Handel, Christophe Rousset, ... Virgin Classics, 2009 average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An excellent voice!

We have heard and seen Joyce Didonato in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the conclusion was: Don't miss the Furore!

My Choice for Best Recording of 2008

Few albums in recent times have I anticipated the arrival of more than Joyce DiDonato's Furore - an album of Handel arias that should dispel the myth of baroque boredom for many. I've had to digest it before reviewing it, wanting to absorb its flavor, take a break and return to see how I felt on repeated hearings before just offering a rave. Having done so, here's the expected rave.

DiDonato is one of those artists who seem to have everything in the world going for her. A unique, sexy look (ever reminding me of the young Bette Midler), great sense of style (remember her Nancy Sinatra get-up as she hosted the Met's HD Orfeo offering.
From Teseo she offers Medea's breathtaking yet oddly constructed "Dolce riposo" that, while a little quicker in tempo than I would have liked, manages still to convey the emotions of the title, the brisker tempo allowing for no singerly indulgences or unduly stretching the vocal line out of proportion. This offers a nice constrast a more rubato delivery of the interior recitative sections, returning to the da capo with a hushed intensity, embellishing the line with varying rates of vibrato and volume, the dispatch of perfect trills and a perfect Handelian line. As much as I love the virtuostic pieces (and boy do I), it is in these quieter, introspective numbers that Handel wows me every time and DiDonato knows exactly how to put these types of arias over.

Following the "Dolce riposo" comes one of those very virtuostic arias - the one, in fact, responsible for the title of this delightful disc.

Recently I've been involved in discussions about historical singers, e.g., Callas and Sutherland and singers capable of fully understanding the text, scratching deeper than its surface and working within the musical framework the composer has laid out, DiDonato makes abundantly clear she is perfectly in tune with this school. The voice is rich with color, like an accomplished jazz singer (and, I imagine, the great singers in Handel's own time) she is unafraid to bend a note's shape and pitch (while landing squarely on it - most of the time) vary the velocity of her vibrato - and when necessary, hold it back entirely. She will spread the vowels of a syllable almost to a level of vulgarity (listen to "Iris, hence away!") that a more prim and proper singer wouldn't dare imagine, yet in so doing, she infuses this very familiar music with an added frisson long missing from even the other outstanding interpretations we've heard over the years.

Her upper middle voice has a naturally rich, fruity quality which she also can color with skill - darkening it one bar and instantly lightening the sound to something resembling sunlight - all of which fits Handel's music like the proverbial glove. I can think of no more perfect example of this than her work in the aria "Moriro ma vendicata" - the first piece in this remarkable recital which requires her to pull out all of the stops.

I'm asking for the moon here, but the only way I can think this album may have been improved is a pipe dream: Yet I'll admit it freely here: Oh how I would have loved a "a multi-track recording of DiDonato singing both parts of the great Cornelia/Sesto duet.

I first fell in love with Miss Donato as Meg in the premiere performances (televised) of Adamo's "Little Women." I (and everyone else) recognized immediately this was a standout talent. It wasn't long before Opera News did a feature on her and the candid, unconventionally pretty young mezzo sounded like one smart cookie. Two years later she took Paris by storm with her Rosina in Colline Serreau's breathtaking "Barbiere" set (in of all places) Moorish Spain, revealing a young artist of supreme depth, innate comedic abilities, musical integrity, stage assuredness and genuine star quality. All of this is in abundance in this recording of Handelian masterpieces. All, you ask? Yes, all. Even the "stage" qualities come off in this recording. Rare is the artist who can sing a recital of arias, yet invoke the sense and spirit of the entire work she's execerpting it from. DiDonato does this, evoking the personality of each character, distilling the essence of their entirety to miniature portraits that reveal each strength of character as well as each flaw. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson had this identical quality, but this is not to compare these two singers who in many other ways are as different as day from night.

Sorge nell `alma mia allows the singer her first genuine "I'm gonna tear the roof right off this place" moments of this recital - and it is, in a word, thrilling.

Another stand out gem, and one of my favorite mezzo arias, is There, in myrtle shades reclined. I've heard this aria sung many times and DiDonato (followed closely by von Otter) takes pride of place in melting my heart and causing me to swoon.

In her delivery of one of Handel's most acclaimed arias, Ariodante's "Scherza infida" DiDonato strikes as nearly a perfect balance between Handelian showmanship and introspective interpretation., as one is likely to hear. While the accompaniment by Christophe Rousset's Les Talens Lyriques is outstanding in every moment of this recital, it is, here, flawless - at complete oneness with the singer, its ebbs and tides, flowing through Handel's music with such delicacy as to be positively gauzelike. Every moment here is one of exquisite beauty.

I cannot ignore what is perhaps a representation of this singer's most remarkable interpretation to date, her Dejanira from Hercules. The speed of the coloratura, the hurling out of sound, the seeming abandonment of all good senses in her approach may (and has) put off some more gentle listeners, but if you can just relax and let go, DiDonato will, take you on a roller coaster journey of the heart and mind offering a frightening and breathtaking look into Dejanira's madness. It is, to be sure, rather an odd way to end a recital - but it is theatrical and thrilling and exactly the type of surprise we should be expecting from the delightful DiDonato.

Highly recommended. Make that VERY high recommended!

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The Extraordinary Joyce DiDonato

Joyce DiDonato is becoming the most talked about and appreciated fresh young Mezzo-soprano on the opera stage. Now with this utterly amazing new recording of Handel opera Mad Scenes her gifts are readily available for all lovers of fine music, whether or not they are blessed with the opportunity to see this artist in action.

Part of DiDonato's allure is her physical presence on the stage: she is beautiful to look at, an exceptional singing actress, and a singer with the ability to communicate even the most complex characters by means of her perfectly disciplined voice ranges as successfully from comedic roles (she is to sing Rosina in 'The Barber of Seville" with Juan Diego Florez and Nathan Gunn this fall in with the Los Angeles Opera) to opera seria - such as the many arias on this recording.

DiDonato's vocal technique is florid yet never does she embellish to the point of making the voice sound strained. The color is amber/gold and as beautiful in the lowest range as it is on the top. This is an extraordinary recording by an extraordinary artist. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, July 09

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Joyce DiDonato

Fantastic....what a voice and what an actress. It is no wonder she is THE mezzo for the world. Also try her album of Handel duets with Patrizia Ciofi. And to see as well as hear a Handel mad scene - get the DVD of "Hercules." Thankfully she is a young singer so the opera world will have her for many years. Certainly she has been instrumental in bringing much neglected Handel music to the forefront.

Why such a wonderful singer should lend herself to such 'furore' without true discrimnation?

Mrs Joyce Di Donata, IMGV, is about the BEST female operatic singer to emerge in this last decade. She has everything in terms of timbre, technique, musicality, and sensitivity.
However, I cannot give 5 stars to this solo album, which, again IMHV, fails quite flatly to present her artistry in the best light.
Since the days of Bartoli's Vivaldi Album some decade ago, mezzo-sopranos, countertenors, sopranos, even tenors now, scramble to be succumbed to 'furore' arias, or 'bravura' arias. Fine, they want to showcase their coloratura technique. What those top singers do NOT realise is that, for the listeners, too much of coloraturas is a torture and not a pleasure.
And what I loath totally is the screechy sound of those lovely voices being mercilessly deployed to convey the so-called pathos, hatred, anger, or put simply, 'furore', TRACK AFTER TRACK.
This could hardly be a selling point of an entire album of 60 minutes plus stuff (or thereabouts).
What producers should forthwith realise is that the 'market' is already quite well saturated with such recorded stuff.
It would hardly do any service their star singers if such is being perpetuated further without discrimination.
Despite the performance of Mrs. Di Donato, only 4 stars.

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Tracks
Serse (Xerxes), opera, HWV 40: Crude furie degl'orridi abissi | Teseo, opera, HWV 9: Dolce riposo | Teseo, opera, HWV 9: Ira, sdegni, e furore... O stringer? nel sen | Teseo, opera, HWV 9: Morir?, ma vendicata | Giulio Cesare in Egitto, opera, HWV 17: Figlio non ?, chi vendicar non cura... L'angue offeso mai riposa | Admeto, R? di Tessaglia, opera, HWV 22: Lentamento / Orride larve... Chiudetevi miei lumi | Hercules, oratorio, HWV 60: Then I am lost... There in myrtle shades reclined | Semele, oratorio, HWV 58: Hence, Iris hence away | Imeneo, opera, HWV 41: Sorge nell'alma mia | Ariodante, opera, HWV 33: E vivo ancora?... Scherza infida | Admeto, R? di Tessaglia, opera, HWV 22: Gelosia, spietata Aletto | Amadigi di Gaula, opera, HWV 11: Dester? dall'empia Dite | Hercules, oratorio, HWV 60: Dissembling, false, perfidious Hercules!... Cease, ruler of the day, to rise | Hercules, oratorio, HWV 60: Where shall I fly?

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