…Magdalena Kožená beguiles and enchants throughout this captivating collection. The Czech mezzo's mature voice combines radiant purity with burnished intensity and…she negotiates Handel's quick-fire show-pieces with dazzling bravura. The musicians of Venice Baroque respond to her incantations with thrilling energy and passion. All in all, the results are completely spell-binding.

With most items familiar from previous Handel aria anthologies, on paper this looks full of tired clichés. Thankfully, the stirring and passionate execution of Handel's music is anything but dull routine. KoOená and her Venetian accomplices might not be giving us anything deeply perceptive but everybody involved sounds as if they are engaged with the music. In particular, the Venice Baroque Orchestra sound admirably absorbed in the dramatic world of each aria.
KoOená has a good stab at this, too, but does not quite capture the personality and situation of each character. Alcina's heartbroken first encounter of a man being beyond her seductive power in 'Ah! mio cor!' is ravishing but its slowly creeping pathos is not a natural opener for a disc like this, and KoOená – albeit passionate – does not capture the depth of Alcina's complex psychological condition. An extrovert 'Cara speme' does not quite fit Sesto's emotional self-inquiry.
KoOená is much better at conveying the scheming Agrippina's anxious plea to the gods and 'Scherza infida' is finely judged, its best passages not too far off the benchmark set by Janet Baker, Sarah Connolly and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (alas, it is let down by the staccato B section). The most convincing synthesis of musical outpouring and dramatic mood is Melissa's 'Desterò dall'empia dite' (from Amadigi).
In Dejanira's mad scene from Hercules, KoOená's affected vowels and hammed-up insanity rob it of the poignancy that understatement achieves much better; Dejanira is a distraught heroine, not a lunatic shrieking that the Martians have landed. A similar approach makes for an over-egged mad scene from Orlando. But despite the frequent limitation of one-dimensional characterisation, these appealing performances have strength and colour.

The voice that goes straight to the heart