Skip to main content
Read page text
page 38
RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR Opera Handel Agrippina Joyce DiDonato mez Elsa Benoit sop Luca Pisaroni bass-bar Franco Fagioli counterten Jakub Józef Orliński counterten Andrea Mastroni bass Carlo Vistoli counterten Biagio Pizzuti bar Marie-Nicole Lemieux mez Il Pomo d’Oro / Maxim Emelyanychev Erato M c 9029 53365-8 (3/20) Producer Daniel Zalay Engineer Hugues Deschaux Sponsored by The climax of the young Handel’s brilliant Italian career, Agrippina is a gloriously amoral comedy of sex – and it’s the women calling the shots – and political chicanery. Stopping at nothing to secure the Roman throne for her ghastly brat of a son Nero, Agrippina herself drives the plot with her ruthless machinations. Vocal charisma is a must-have for this plum Handelian role. And no Agrippina on record matches Joyce DiDonato’s mix of hauteur, tonal glamour and subtle characterisation. She excels in silken doublespeak; and when the mask temporarily drops, she unfurls the full splendour of her flaming mezzo in the anguished scena ‘Pensieri, voi mi tormentate’. While DiDonato’s is one of the great Handel performances, this is by no means a one-woman show. Elsa Benoit, sweettoned, confident of her sexual power, makes a delectable Poppea. Franco Fagioli, never knowingly under-characterised, gives a no-holds-barred performance that proclaims Nero a monsterin-the-making. As his antithesis Ottone – the only character with a shred of integrity – Jakub Józef Orli´nski sings with beautifully mellow tone and a fine-drawn line. His piercing lament ‘Voi che udite’ is a highlight. Maxim Emelyanychev’s direction has all the verve and colour you could wish, while never short-changing the opera’s serious moments. There is strong recorded competition from Gardiner and Jacobs. But with DiDonato carrying all before her, this thrilling new Agrippina eclipses all comers. Richard Wigmore Recital ‘Si j’ai aimé’ Sandrine Piau sop Le Concert de la Loge / Julien Chauvin Alpha Classics F ALPHA445 (8/19) Producer Nicolas Bartholomée Engineer Maximilien Ciup We’re used to Sandrine Piau’s recital albums being beautifully programmed and beguilingly sung, but ‘Si j’ai aimé’ offers something special. The soprano herself describes the process of recording this album as a ‘charming escapade’, and that’s precisely what it provides the listener too: an hour of sheer pleasure, of exquisite singing and playing. But it also casts a light on a rich tradition of 19th-century French orchestral songs – largely forgotten today – with its gathering together of works that are by turns diverting, moving and irresistibly seductive. With the support of the ever-enterprising and eternally inquisitive team at Palazzetto Bru-Zane, Piau and conductor and violinist Julian Chauvin have assembled a programme of gems, lovingly polished and 38 GRAMOPHONE RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR 2020 presented, that succeeds in opening up our appreciation of a whole genre. What’s more, they present them all with an infectious sense of wide-eyed wonder, with the lucid, crystalline textures of Chauvin’s intimately scaled period-instrument band, Le Concert de La Loge, providing an ideal accompaniment to Piau’s light, silvery soprano. And while they bring freshness to a couple of numbers from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, it’s mainly about the unknown gems, with wonderful songs by the likes of Théodore Dubois and Louis Vierne (not to mention by the better-known Saint-Saëns and Massenet) hinting tantalisingly at further riches that are to be found in this unexplored corner of the repertoire. Hugo Shirley gramophone.co.uk
page 39
RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR Solo Vocal Janáček The Diary of One who Disappeared, etc Nicky Spence ten Julius Drake pf et al Hyperion F CDA68282 (8/19) Producer Simon Kiln Engineer Ben Connellan Sponsored by Rarely have words and music conspired to make as magical effect as happens with the 22 songs of Janá∂ek’s The Diary of One who Disappeared and (though no Czech-speaker myself) the sheer ardour of Nicky Spence’s performance, allied to Julius Drake’s colour-sensitive playing, makes an indelible impression. The meeting of Jan, a village boy, with Zefka, a gipsy girl, involves us in progressive phases of seduction. The cycle’s climax arrives with the 12th song where Jan confesses that the combination of a shady forest, Zefka’s black eyes and her snowy bare knees will never leave him. Night itself is represented by an agitated Intermezzo erotico for solo piano which Drake treats to levels of drama that approximate Janá∂ek’s bigger-scale Piano Sonata. Zefka is coquettishly, at times provocatively, sung by Václava Housková, with a haunting trio of voices, superbly balanced, especially effective in the sad envoi that closes the ninth song. As to the cycle’s end – where Jan meets Zefka with his son in her arms – even Beno Blachut and Ernst Haefliger cannot outshine Nicky Spence’s proud exuberance. Hyperion’s makeweights are hardly less affecting: the eight vivid nursery rhymes that make up Ríkadla, and the beautiful, much earlier Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs, where Spence and Housková are once again heard in duet – the track ‘Memories’ might be the best place to sample this wonderful album. Overall, this perfect musical blend of earth and sky is as fine a Janá∂ek programme as I have personally ever encountered. Rob Cowan E A L O V E G A I N J A M B E N : P H O T O G R A P H Y The CBSO are joined by Kremerata Baltica and Gidon Kremer under the expert guidance of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla for our 2020 Recording of the Year gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR 2020 39

Page Text

View plaintext

RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR

Opera

Handel Agrippina Joyce DiDonato mez Elsa Benoit sop Luca Pisaroni bass-bar Franco Fagioli counterten Jakub Józef Orliński counterten Andrea Mastroni bass Carlo Vistoli counterten Biagio Pizzuti bar Marie-Nicole Lemieux mez Il Pomo d’Oro / Maxim Emelyanychev Erato M c 9029 53365-8 (3/20) Producer Daniel Zalay Engineer Hugues Deschaux

Sponsored by

The climax of the young Handel’s brilliant Italian career, Agrippina is a gloriously amoral comedy of sex – and it’s the women calling the shots – and political chicanery. Stopping at nothing to secure the Roman throne for her ghastly brat of a son Nero, Agrippina herself drives the plot with her ruthless machinations. Vocal charisma is a must-have for this plum Handelian role. And no Agrippina on record matches Joyce DiDonato’s mix of hauteur, tonal glamour and subtle characterisation. She excels in silken doublespeak; and when the mask temporarily drops, she unfurls the full splendour of her flaming mezzo in the anguished scena ‘Pensieri, voi mi tormentate’. While DiDonato’s is one of the great Handel performances,

this is by no means a one-woman show. Elsa Benoit, sweettoned, confident of her sexual power, makes a delectable Poppea. Franco Fagioli, never knowingly under-characterised, gives a no-holds-barred performance that proclaims Nero a monsterin-the-making. As his antithesis Ottone – the only character with a shred of integrity – Jakub Józef Orli´nski sings with beautifully mellow tone and a fine-drawn line. His piercing lament ‘Voi che udite’ is a highlight. Maxim Emelyanychev’s direction has all the verve and colour you could wish, while never short-changing the opera’s serious moments. There is strong recorded competition from Gardiner and Jacobs. But with DiDonato carrying all before her, this thrilling new Agrippina eclipses all comers. Richard Wigmore

Recital

‘Si j’ai aimé’ Sandrine Piau sop Le Concert de la Loge / Julien Chauvin Alpha Classics F ALPHA445 (8/19) Producer Nicolas Bartholomée Engineer Maximilien Ciup

We’re used to Sandrine Piau’s recital albums being beautifully programmed and beguilingly sung, but ‘Si j’ai aimé’ offers something special. The soprano herself describes the process of recording this album as a ‘charming escapade’, and that’s precisely what it provides the listener too: an hour of sheer pleasure, of exquisite singing and playing. But it also casts a light on a rich tradition of 19th-century French orchestral songs – largely forgotten today – with its gathering together of works that are by turns diverting, moving and irresistibly seductive. With the support of the ever-enterprising and eternally inquisitive team at Palazzetto Bru-Zane, Piau and conductor and violinist Julian Chauvin have assembled a programme of gems, lovingly polished and

38 GRAMOPHONE RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR 2020

presented, that succeeds in opening up our appreciation of a whole genre. What’s more, they present them all with an infectious sense of wide-eyed wonder, with the lucid, crystalline textures of Chauvin’s intimately scaled period-instrument band, Le Concert de La Loge, providing an ideal accompaniment to Piau’s light, silvery soprano. And while they bring freshness to a couple of numbers from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, it’s mainly about the unknown gems, with wonderful songs by the likes of Théodore Dubois and Louis Vierne (not to mention by the better-known Saint-Saëns and Massenet) hinting tantalisingly at further riches that are to be found in this unexplored corner of the repertoire. Hugo Shirley gramophone.co.uk

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content