Handel: Semele, HWV 58 (Live) Classical Opera SDG

Handel: Semele, HWV 58 (Live)

Show recording details

SG 0733

Handel: Semele, HWV 58 (Live)

Label Catalogue Number:
SDG733

Running Time: 02:35:40

Digital UPC: 0843183073320

Release Date: June 2020
Originally recorded in 2019

Composer
George Frideric Handel

Solo Orchestra
English Baroque Soloists

Choral
Monteverdi Choir

Solo Soloist
Lucile Richardot

Solo Soloist
Carlo Vistoli

Solo Soloist
Gianluca Buratto

Solo Soloist
Angharad Rowlands

Soprano Voice Soloist
Louise Alder

Solo Soloist
Hugo Hymas

Conductor
Sir John Eliot Gardiner

Genre:
Classical
Opera

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Reviews

"... This is the material that this group can do in their sleep, given the long association with Handel's music, for they know every nuance and detail of the score, As a result, the performance is, as expected, excellent. Louise Alder's Semele is suitably light and demented in her famous aria, while Juno's Lucile Richardot has a rich and forceful tone ... this is a wonderful recording ..."

Bertil van Boer – Fanfare – May/June 2021

Chosen by Times critics as one of the best Classical albums of 2020

The Times & Sunday Times – 10 December 2020

Opera Choice

Performance ***** Recording ****

“… British soprano Louise Alder is riveting in the title role as she mutates from soft seductress to vain brat to crushed victim, applying a range of styles to develop her character… this, Semele production is gorgeous, and among the best ever.”

Berta Joncus – BBC Music magazine – Christmas 2020

Excellent Album ****

Philippe Venturini – Classica magazine (France) – December 2020/ January 2021

“… The recording quality is attractive and captures stage nuance well. You could hardly ask for a better programme note here than one by David Vickers. Presiding over all is Gardiner who directs with huge authority, imagination and engagement. His earlier recording is still powerfully attractive but in terms of intensity and immediacy this live version is finer still.”

Jonathan Woolf – MusicWeb-International.com – 24 September 2020

Editor's Choice Opera

"... It would seem that Gardiner has also cast his performance with dramtic imperatives in mind, for while his singers include relatively few familiar Handelian names, each has a colour and temperament to bring their character to life... Louise Alder is a happy choice, her voice rich, fluid and precise, and her agile and alert acting skills finding ideal projection in the wonderful clutch of arias Handel sets before her..."

Lindsay Kemp - Gramophone magazine - September 2020

Classical Album of the Week

“… Gardiner’s trump cards are his famous choir — thrilling in the great choral reaction to Semele’s death, O Terror and Astonishment! — and Louise Alder’s entrancing Semele, who makes every highlight, especially her vain and seductive Myself I shall adore and the bravura No, no, I’ll take no less. Hugo Hymas’s young Jupiter is an appealing, stylish Handelian. Gardiner is in his element with this great piece.”

Hugh Canning The Sunday Times (Culture magazine) – 2 August 2020

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