The orchestra plays with fastidious attention to Handel’s ever-changing palette, and its support for the singers – particularly with the obbligatos – is unfailingly sensitive. And the singers are top-notch...The moments of greatest beauty belong – as if by right – to Anna Bonitatibus as Ruggiero and Magdalena Kožená in the title role.

Under Marc Minkowski’s inspired direction the orchestra is fully part of the drama...this is an excellent set that will give much pleasure.

The four female voices deliver some of the most stylish and exhilarating Handel singing you’re likely to hear in one place today...at the heart of it all is Kožená, at the height of her powers as a vocal actress and fully at ease with the tessitura of a role usually assigned to sopranos. She charts Alcina’s psychological journey quite magnificently...All in all, this could well be a new reference recording for this rich and strange opera.

This new [recording] scores highly, partly for the dramatic relish with which the conductor Marc Minkowski and his Musiciens du Louvre dispatch the music, but principally for a tour de force performance in the title role from the mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená. She keeps the emotional import of the words she sings absolutely front and centre of her delivery, without compromising the shape or sense of the music, and she has fabulous low notes as a bonus.

the performances are almost entirely splendid. The first voice to enchant is the high-flying soprano of Erin Morley as Morgana...But the most stunning singing comes from Magdalena Kozena as her volatile, man-hungry sister Alcina...Vocal accomplishments are complemented by the lively ensemble spirit generated by Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre. They decorate Handel’s top-notch score with piquant colours and instrumental finesse, and keep the pace moving.