Lossless is available in FLAC and ALAC (For Mac). You select on the download page.
When you purchase a lossless format, we include the MP3 free of charge
Please note: On Mp3 format an unavoidable click may be heard on segue track breaks, to avoid this issue please select lossless
This item is temporarily unavailable.
Why not buy the whole Album?
Your selections total more than the whole disc price.
Notes
Handel is one of Sandrine Piau’s cult composers, and everyone has vivid memories of her magnificent Alcina on DVD (ALPHA715): ‘Where once I portrayed light-hearted, pirouetting heroines, this new album offers a portrait of powerful, often wounded women. (...) Queens, sorceresses, sirens... we were attracted by the musical and emotional intensity of the hopes, disappointments and sufferings of these women, not forgetting the malice or cruelty that they also know how to deploy’, continues Jérôme Correas, the soprano’s longstanding musical partner and conductor of Les Paladins. With Almirena, Cleopatra and Alcina, Handel explores all the facets of these defeated heroines, whose boldly delineated characters live once more in Sandrine Piau’s passionate interpretation.
Please login to post a review
Reviews
Nominee in the Vocal category
BBC Music magazine Awards 2023
Nominee in the Baroque Vocal category
2023 ICMA Nominee
“… Sandrine Piau’s new album is no run-of-the-mill addition to an already bulging discography of Handel collections. She provides consistently accomplished performances which admirably serve Handel’s music.”
Michael Cookson – MusicWeb-International.com – 18 April 2022
“…Her [Piau] singing is pretty faultless, with her soprano buoyant and lively, sailing easily through the runs and triplets that come her way, as well as moulding a pliant and expressive line… Alongside the arias are three movements from the Concerti Grossi and an overture, allowing Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins to display their sonorous abilities to the full.” ****½
Francis Muzzu – Opera Now – March 2022
“… ‘Piangerò la sorte mia’, finds the singer not darkening her tone but portraying Cleopatra’s sadness with a touching intensity. ‘Da tempeste il legno infranto’, on the other hand, is a true contrast, sung with appealing vigour…”
Richard Lawrence – Gramophone magazine – March 2022
Choc de Classica
Philippe Venturini – Classica magazine (France) – March 2022
“… The recording is excellent, achieving a completely natural balance between voice and orchestra, with just enough room ambiance to warm the overall sound without sacrificing clarity. The pungency of this period ensemble … is caught in full technicolor. We seem to be living in a golden age of impressive French sopranos, but no one is finer in this repertoire than Piau, and this special partnership has produced a recording of real distinction – warmly recommended.”
David A McConnell – theclassicreview.com – 31 January 2022
Opera Choice
Performance ***** Recording *****
“In this dazzling album, Sandrine Piau crowns her legacy as a Baroque prima donna… Piau chose her numbers to probe the feelings of what she calls ‘powerful, often wounded women’, whose ability to enchant – musically, erotically, rhetorically – is their downfall. Her facility for conveying steeliness and vulnerability within the same aria is striking…”
Berta Joncus – BBC Music magazine – March 2022
Media Downloads
Whenever possible we provide a high resolution CD cover image and a PDF version of the CD booklet for you to download and keep. These are found in your history if purchased and once you have logged in.
My Wish List
