G.F. Handel : Arias - Lorraine Hunt Lieberson - The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

G.F. Handel : Arias

 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson - The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson : Mezzo-Soprano

George Frideric Handel :

Arias :

Theodora ( HWV 68)

Serse (HWV 40)

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Cantatas :

La Lucrezia (HWV 145)

Harry Bicket : Harpsichord and Chamber Organ

Stephen Stubbs : Lute and Baroque Guitar

Phoebe Carrai : Cello

Margriet Tindemans : Viola da Gamba

Recorded : 1-9 & 18-20 August 24 and 26, 2003 at Blackheath Halls,

London,UK.

10-17, March 18-21, 2004 at the Concert Hall of the King Center

at the Auraria Higher Education Center, Denver, Colorado, USA.

Nominee : 2005 Grammy Award for "Best Classical Vocal Performance."

The New York Times: In this age of hyperbole "great artist" is an overused term. But it's the only one possible for Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who sings with something that goes deeper than mere beauty to get to the pure essence of what music - all music - is about. - Anne Midgette

The New York Times: December 15, 2006 Finally, my current favorite among Handel recordings is a program of arias sung by the sublime mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, with Harry Bicket conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, an accomplished period-instrument ensemble. There are arias from “Theodora” and “Serse,” and a 20-minute solo cantata, “La Lucrezia.” The appeal of Ms. Hunt Lieberson’s artistry goes beyond the affecting beauty, vulnerability and intensity of her singing. Her performances are so communicative it’s as if she were talking to you urgently. That this irreplaceable artist died in July at 52 just makes this 2004 recording more precious.

La Scena Musicale : Norman Lebrecht The most memorable Handel I heard all year was Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's arias album on Avie.

Guardian: Andrew Clements - Friday 4 June 2004

All those lucky enough to catch the Glyndebourne production of Handel's oratorio Theodora, either when Peter Sellars' staging was new in 1996 or when it was revived last summer, will have the beauty and intensity that Lorraine Hunt Lieberson brought to the role of Irene etched on their memories. They will need no further recommendation to snap up this disc, in which Hunt Lieberson sings the five mezzo arias from Theodora alongside the Italian cantata La Lucrezia and two arias from the opera Serse.
In fact, Hunt Lieberson has recorded the whole of Theodora before, when as a soprano she sang the title role in Nikolaus Harnoncourt's version. But in the oratorio it is Irene who is both the work's conscience and its spiritual centre, and that is a role which suits her perfectly. The five arias for the character provide an emotional graph of the work's development towards the final martyrdom of Theodora herself, after which Irene has the last reflective word. In Hunt Lieberson's singing, every detail matters, so that such tiny things as the portamento with which she links the central section of "Lord to Thee each night and day", to its reprise have a quite magical, transforming effect.
The rest is equally remarkable. La Lucrezia is early Handel, dating from about 1708; a whole tragedy compressed into its 20-minute sequence of recitatives and arias capped by a final demand for revenge, all of which Hunt Lieberson delivers as a single, unwavering dramatic arch. She lavishes as much care on the castrato arias from Serse - as impressive in the flashy coloratura of Se bramate d'amar and its contrasting slow episodes as in the smooth contours of Ombra mai Fu. It would be wonderful to hear her onstage as Xerxes; in the meantime this is a quite exceptional disc.

The Observer: Anthony Holden - Sunday 30 May 2004 Classical CD of the week

If Peter Sellars's Glyndebourne staging of Handel's Theodora is one of the most powerful opera productions of recent years, its changing casts have included no finer an Irene than the outstanding American mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
Those lucky enough to hear her last summer will be thrilled to know she has recorded Irene's arias with the same forces, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Harry Bicket, adding more from Xerxes (including 'Ombra mai fu') and the cantata 'La Lucrezia'.
This is a sumptuous recording; no wonder the New Yorker has described her as 'the most potent mezzo since Callas'.

BBC Music Magazine : George Pratt
Performance : *****
Sound : *****

Handel aficionados have long protested, rightly, that his dramatic music is far more than a mere concert of arias. In opera, his stage sense was profound; in cantata and oratorio, he constantly visualised a theatre of the mind – Theodora includes an absent-minded stage direction. Yet this disc, essentially a concert, works magnificently, partly thanks to a truly outstanding voice but also to repertoire ranging from contralto to soprano via high castrato, from the passion of an enraged Xerxes to the unswerving calm of Irene, Theodora’s confidante. The libretto paints Irene as a pallid figure, too good to be true. Yet Handel gave her five heartfelt arias ranging from the utter simplicity of her welcoming the dawn, to the violence of earthquake and thunder in ‘Defend her, Heav’n’. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings them with consummate artistry, full of expressive nuance yet with effortless spaciousness and breadth of line. Her range of colour is astonishing: dark in Irene’s resigned elegy ‘New scenes of Joy’; brimming with breathtaking virtuosity in Xerxes’s jilted rage; mercurial in the grand scena of La Lucrezia as Handel abandons the conventional unities to express the intensity of Lucretia’s anguish. Recorded sound, in two different venues, is excellent, as is the supporting orchestral and continuo detail. An exceptional disc.

Tracklist : 01. Theodora, HWV68 : Recit : "Ah! Whither should we fly, or fly from whom?" 02. Aria : "As with rosy steps the morn" 03. Recit : "O bright example of all goodness!" 04. Aria : "Bane of virtue, nurse of passions" 05. Recit : "The clouds begin to veil the hemisphere" 06. Aria : "Defend her Heav'n!" 07. Aria : "Lord, to Thee each night and day" 08. Recit : "She's gone, disdaining liberty and life" 09. Aria : "New scenes of joy" 10. La Lucrezia, HWV145 : Recit: "O Numi eterni! O stelle, stelle!" 11. Aria : "Gia superbo, dek mio affanno" 12. Recit : "Ma voi forse nel cielo" 13. Aria : "ll suol che preme, l'aura che spira" 14. Recit : "Ah! che ancor nell'abisso" 15. Aria : "Alla salma infedel porga la pena" 16. Recit : "A voi, a voi, padre, consorte" 17. Arioso : "Gia nel seno comincia acompir" - Furioso: "Ma se qui non m'e dato" 18. Serse, HWV40 : Aria : "Se bramate d'amar, chi vi sdegna" 19. Recit : "Fondi tenere e belle" 20. Aria : "Ombra mai fu"

Posted by Ice