Handel: Ariodante

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in Alan Curtis's scrupulously detailed performance, Joyce diDonato's gleaming legato and coloratura are upstaged by the elegance of Karina Gauvin's Ginevra. While diDonato offers recklessly inventive... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2011, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 16th May 2011
Catalogue No: 0708442
Label: Erato
Series: Alan Curtis Handel Operas
Length: 3 hours 12 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

9th May 2011
Building a Library

January 2019

Recommended Recording

Handel: Ariodante

Work length3:12:14

$106.60

$139.40

Marie-Nicole Lemieux (vocals), Karina Gauvin (soprano), Matthew Brook (bass), Topi Lehtipuu (vocals), Sabina Puertolas (soprano), Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani (vocals), Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano)
Il Complesso Barocco
Alan Curtis
Recorded: 2010-01-01
Recording Venue: 3-11 Jan 2010, Villa San Ferma, Lonigo, Italy

Adagio - Allegro

Track length3:25

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Alla gavotta

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Cavatina: Vezzi, lushinghe, e brio

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Recitativo: Ami dunque, o signora?

Track length0:51

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Aria: Orrida a gl'occhi miei

Track length2:21

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Recitativo: Orgogliosa beltade!

Track length0:26

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Aria: Apri le luci, e mira

Track length3:27

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Recitativo: Mie speranze che fate?

Track length0:24

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Aria: Coperta la frode

Track length4:12

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Catavina: Qui d'amour nel suo linguaggio

Track length2:22

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Recitativo: T'amerò dunque sempre, idolo mio

Track length0:41

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Duetto: Prendi da questa mano

Track length2:13

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Recitativo: Non vi turbate bell'alme innamorate

Track length1:14

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Aria: Volate, amori

Track length4:06

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Recitativo: Vanne pronto, Odoardo

Track length0:38

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Aria: Voli colla sua tromba

Track length4:30

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Recitativo: Oh! felice mio core!

Track length0:14

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Aria: Con l'ali di constanza

Track length7:10

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Recitativo: Conosco il merto tuo, cara Dalinda

Track length1:16

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Aria: Spero per voi, sì, sì

Track length4:49

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Recitativo: Dalinda, in occidente già cade il sole

Track length0:30

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Aria: Del mio sol vezzosi rai

Track length5:49

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Recitativo:Ah! che quest'alma amante

Track length0:18

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Aria: Il primo ardor

Track length3:46

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Recitativo: Pare, ovunque m'aggiri

Track length0:50

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Sinfonia pastorale

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Duetto: Se rinasce nel mio cor - Coro: Si godete al vostro amor

Track length2:21

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Ballo di Ninfe, Pastori e Pastorelle

Track length1:05

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Musette I: Lentement

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Musette II: Andante

Track length0:54

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Allegro

Track length1:39

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Coro: Si godete al vostro amor

Track length1:09

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Ariodante HWV 33, Atto secondo: Sinfonia

Track length0:55

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Recitativo: Di Dalinda l'amore

Track length1:34

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Aria: Tu preparati a morire

Track length4:07

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Recitativo: Ginevra? O mio Signore!

Track length0:24

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Aria: Tu vivi, e punito

Track length3:44

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Ariodante HWV 33, Atto secondo, Scena 3: Recitativo: E vivo ancora!

Track length0:20

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Ariodante, HWV 33, Act 2: "Scherza infida" (Ariodante)

Track length9:57

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Recitativo: Lo stral ferí

Track length0:36

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Aria: se tanto piace al cor

Track length3:19

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Recitativo: Felice fu il mio inganno

Track length0:10

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Aria: Se l'inganno sortisce felice

Track length4:09

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Recitativo: Andiam, fidi, al consiglio

Track length1:15

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Aria: Invida sorte avara

Track length5:33

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Arioso: Mi palpita il core

Track length2:50

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Recitativo: Sta lieta, o principessa

Track length2:44

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Aria: Il tuo sangue, ed il tuo zelo

Track length4:27

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Ariodante HWV 33, Atto secondo, Scena 9: Recitativo: Quante sventure un giorno sol ne porta! - Scena 10 - Recitativo accompagnato: A me impudica?

Track length2:29

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Aria: Il mio crudel martoro

Track length8:15

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Ballo: Entrée des Sponges agréables

Track length2:26

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Ballo: Entrée des Songes funestes

Track length2:02

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Ballo: Entrée des Songes agréables effrayés

Track length0:44

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Ballo: Entrée des Songes agréables effrayés

Track length1:18

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Recitativo accompagnato Che vidi? Oh Dei! Misera me!

Track length0:19

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Sinfonia - Cavatina: Numi! Lasciarmi vivere

Track length2:17

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Recitativo: Perfidi! io son tradita!

Track length1:23

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Aria: Cieca notte, infidi sguardi

Track length6:35

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Recitativo: Ingrato Polinesso!

Track length0:19

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Aria: Neghittosi, or voi che fate?

Track length3:06

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Recitativo: Sire, deh! non negare

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Aria: Dover, glustizia, amor

Track length3:42

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Recitativo: Or venga a me la figlia

Track length1:16

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Aria: Io ti bacio, o mano augusta

Track length2:49

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Recitativo: Figlia, da dubbia sorte

Track length0:34

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Aria: Al sen ti stringo

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Recitativo: Così mi lascia il padre?

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Cavatina: Sì, morrò

Track length1:21

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Sinfonia

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Recitativo: Arrida il Cielo alla giustizia

Track length2:33

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Aria: Dopo notte atra e funesta

Track length7:22

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Recitativo: Dalinda, ecco risorge

Track length0:29

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Duetto: Dite spera, e son contento

Track length4:46

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Recitativo: Da dubbia infausta sorte

Track length0:38

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Arioso: Manca, oh Dei! Ia mia s=costanza

Track length1:05

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Recitativo: Figlia, innocente figlia!

Track length1:18

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Duetto: Bramo aver mille vite

Track length5:02

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Coro: Ogn'uno acclami bella virtute

Track length3:23

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Ballo: Gavotte

Track length0:55

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Ballo: Rondeau

Track length0:58

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Ballo: Bourrée

Track length0:52

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Coro: Sa trionfar ognor virtude

Track length1:03

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Recording of the Week, Handel's Ariodante

9th May 2011

Joyce DiDonato sings the title-role on Alan Curtis’s recording of Handel’s Scottish opera, with Marie-Nicole Lemieux as the dastardly Polinesso and Karina Gauvin as the woman they both love.

In this complete recording of Ariodante, Alan Curtis, a supreme Handelian conductor and scholar, joins forces with glorious mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato, who, with her Virgin Classics album of Handel arias, ‘Furore’, “scored a triumph … which not only shows her phenomenal technical talent, but verily crackles with dramatic fire” (BBC).

In 2010, Virgin Classics released Curtis’ recording of Handel’s opera Berenice. The US magazine Opera News welcomed it, saying: “At the helm of the superb period-instrument ensemble Il Complesso Barocco, with its smooth violin section and supple, energetic continuo, Alan Curtis paces a well-chosen cast with his customary precision and command ... Singers never seem musically constrained or theatrically hampered, and … the cast exhibits a welcome sureness with Handel's style and rhetorical presentation, both individually and as an ensemble.”

In Ariodante, DiDonato takes the title role of a young prince -- remaining in male mode throughout after her recent gender-swapping antics on the operatic recital CD ‘Diva, Divo’, The role was written for the star castrato Carestini and includes two contrasting showpieces -- ‘Dopo notte’ and ‘Scherza, infida’ – both among the most famous of all Handel’s opera arias.

When DiDonato sang Ariodante in Geneva in 2007, the Financial Times wrote: “How confidently she brings off trouser roles and what spine-tingling effect she puts into a bravura piece such as ‘Dopo notte’”, while the Neue Zürcher Zeitung felt that: “her bright, homogeneous mezzo soprano is wonderfully suited to the passionate lover who, just before his wedding, believes he has been deceived by his betrothed.” The supposedly unfaithful Princess Ginevra is sung here by the sensuous-toned Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin, praised in Handel by Opera News for her “tonal substance, even at pianissimo,” and her “real bel canto technique, all in one voice from top to bottom; the whole aria is carefully shaped without breaking the Baroque boundaries”. Joining DiDonato and Gauvin in the cast are another fine Canadian singer, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, the charming Spanish soprano Sabina Puertolas and the elegant Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu.

Gramophone has said that “Alan Curtis has done more than most to prove that many of Handel's 42 operas are first-rate music dramas”, while the BBC Music Magazine has praised him as “a seasoned Handelian who has contributed, perhaps more than anyone now, to the composer’s operas on disc.”

This new recording will further support both those claims and the New York Times’ judgement that he is “one of the great scholar-musicians of recent times”.

Reviews

July 2011

in Alan Curtis's scrupulously detailed performance, Joyce diDonato's gleaming legato and coloratura are upstaged by the elegance of Karina Gauvin's Ginevra. While diDonato offers recklessly inventive da capo decorations, Gauvin favours measured pathos...for a complex and moving Ginevra, this is the Ariodante to have

14th May 2011

[DiDonato] matches thrilling technical despatch to personable characterisation...She is surrounded by a cast of equally accomplished Handelians...But the key lies in the inspiring musical direction of Curtis...From Il Complesso Barocco, his hand-picked band, he draws playing of infinite flexibility and unforced style.

August 2011

Ariodante is sung by the wonderful Joyce DiDonato. "Con l'ali di constanza" is taken at quite a lick: fair enough, as the reference is to Cupid's wings. In "Scherz, infida", with its mournful bassoon, DiDonato has the full measure of Ariodante's despair...There are no weaknesses in the rest of the cast. Alan Curtis directs with his customary stylishness and, in the "Ballo di ninfe...", a nice touch of rustic phrasing.

July 2011

[diDonato's] bravura technique - great Rossini singer that she is - is second to none in 'Dopo notte'. She also brings a rich palette of vocal colour and emotional nuance to Ariodante's other sublime arias...[This is] perhaps the most consistently well-cast Ariodante on record...Curtis's cast, his always sensible approach to tempo...and the superb playing of his Complesso Barocco put this set close to the top of the Ariodante pile.

9th May 2011

this new set has all the hallmarks of Curtis’s earlier projects: the pacing (even during the dramatically static first act) is immaculate...Lemieux is thrillingly butch and deliciously insinuating as Polinesso...There may be no shortage of good Ariodantes on disc, but this new contender scores highly both as a team effort and for the spellbinding central performance from DiDonato.

12th June 2011

[DiDonato] is almost as compelling a Handelian as she is a Rossinian. She brings rapt expression to Ariodante’s outburst of rage and despair, Scherza infida, with its doleful bassoon solo, and almost jazzily syncopated bravura to his final show stopper, Dopo notte. These are among the American singer’s finest achievements on disc...She is surrounded by a cast without a weak link: as the wrongly accused Ginevra, Karina Gauvin phrases with sculptural beauty

12th May 2011

Tempos are wonderfully fresh and vigorous, the phrasing crisp without being clipped...But the singing is the glory of the set: Joyce DiDonato confirms her reputation as the finest Handelian mezzo-soprano of the day...she is so clean of tone, so true of pitch and engaged by the drama that it is impossible to carp. Marie-Nicole Lemieux is thrillingly incisive as the dashingly villainous Polinesso.

Handel: Ariodante

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Recording of the Week, Handel's Ariodante

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