Getting at Handel's operas and oratorios

[Elgarian]

I've never been sure whether it was appropriate to discuss the cantatas in this thread, but I've always done so, so I'll continue until the hammer falls. The good news is this:



Yes, the Brilliant series continues, with volume 4, see here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handel-Complete-Cantatas-Vol-4/dp/B005QHJKF8/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1323336878&sr=1-1

Details of works/performers here:
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Brilliant%2BClassics/94257

Are these performances as good as those on the Glossa set, or the Zadori Hungaraton recordings? I've no idea - I haven't compared them directly, and I doubt if I'd be able to decide if I did. But this disc lit up my lunchtime a couple of days ago, and at their absurdly low price there's simply no point in not buying this series as fast as it appears.

[mamascarlatti]

Does anybody have any opinions of this Ariodante? I have the Minkowski version but I'm tempted by the presence of Joyce DiDonato on this set.

[Coopmv]

Does anybody have any opinions of this Ariodante? I have the Minkowski version but I'm tempted by the presence of Joyce DiDonato on this set.

I prefer Alan Curtis over Marc Minkowski anytime when it comes to Handel ...

[DarkAngel]

Does anybody have any opinions of this Ariodante? I have the Minkowski version but I'm tempted by the presence of Joyce DiDonato on this set.

DiDonato is indeed great here with strong cast, enough reason alone to buy this, but.........

Although I have almost all recent Curtis Handel opera sets and like them much better than his older releases, here for some unexplained reason he is a bit restrained with orchestra and doesn't get the full dramatic impact he is capable of, I was a bit disappointed Going back to relisten to the Minkowski I had forgotten how great it is, a more vibrant performance.......if I could have only one I would give slight overall edge to Minkowski

The "professional" critics give new Curtis 10/10 unabashed praise, so what to do (buy both be happy)

[mamascarlatti]

Thanks DA, I reckoned I probaby couldn't go wrong if I did buy it.

[DarkAngel]

Thanks DA, I reckoned I probaby couldn't go wrong if I did buy it.

You will surely not regret the purchase, the "yankee diva" never lets us down, a brilliant artist

You will also come away with even more appreciation of the Minkowski which still stands very tall
I wish he would record more of these

[chasmaniac]

.[asin]B001F4YGZA[/asin]

Yo, LG!

Count me among those untroubled by Diana Moore's wobble. Far better that than any countertenor. This is good stuff. The notes make much of its relationship to Athalia, but its overall feel remiinds me strongly of L'Allegro.

[nico1616]

I have been collecting Handel operas and oratorias for some years now, and these are my top recommendations:

1) Ariodante - Minkowski: the best Handel opera recording ever made, extremely dramatic and world class performances from the whole cast. Lynne Dawson is the definitive Handel soprano, Ewa Podles wickedness impersonated, Richard Croft a Handel tenor in the league of Rolfe-Johnson. Marc Minkowski is immortalized with this recording.

2) Alcina - Hickox: recorded in 1985, at the beginning of the Handel revival. Arleen Auger is unforgettable as the sorceress and the conducting of Hickox is truly magical. Although I like the Morgana (Gauvin) on the Curtis set more, and Fleming as Alcina with Christie has her moments, this remains the best overall performance of one of Handels best operas.

3) Agrippina - Gardiner: Handel can be funny, Della Jones is not the most pleasant voice to listen to, but what a vocal actress! She has you in her spell from her first words 'Nerone, amato figlio'. Yes, recitatives in Baroque opera can be as compelling as the arias. Alastair Miles stands out as Claudio, a great deep bass who brings out all the irony of this role.

4) Semele - Nelson: Another one of those great librettos, and absolute delight in the opera house (the staging of Robert Carsen!). Kathleen Battle has all the virtuosity a Semele needs, I only wish Antony Rolfe-Johnson (Jupiter in the Gardiner recording) would have joined her.

Nico

[71 dB]

I have been collecting Handel operas and oratorias for some years now, and these are my top recommendations:

1) Ariodante - Minkowski: the best Handel opera recording ever made, extremely dramatic and world class performances from the whole cast. Lynne Dawson is the definitive Handel soprano, Ewa Podles wickedness impersonated, Richard Croft a Handel tenor in the league of Rolfe-Johnson. Marc Minkowski is immortalized with this recording.

2) Alcina - Hickox: recorded in 1985, at the beginning of the Handel revival. Arleen Auger is unforgettable as the sorceress and the conducting of Hickox is truly magical. Although I like the Morgana (Gauvin) on the Curtis set more, and Fleming as Alcina with Christie has her moments, this remains the best overall performance of one of Handels best operas.

3) Agrippina - Gardiner: Handel can be funny, Della Jones is not the most pleasant voice to listen to, but what a vocal actress! She has you in her spell from her first words 'Nerone, amato figlio'. Yes, recitatives in Baroque opera can be as compelling as the arias. Alastair Miles stands out as Claudio, a great deep bass who brings out all the irony of this role.

4) Semele - Nelson: Another one of those great librettos, and absolute delight in the opera house (the staging of Robert Carsen!). Kathleen Battle has all the virtuosity a Semele needs, I only wish Antony Rolfe-Johnson (Jupiter in the Gardiner recording) would have joined her.

Nico

I have none of these but I have Minkowski's Hercules

[nico1616]

I have none of these but I have Minkowski's Hercules

That would be my number 5 
Super performance!

[mc ukrneal]

I have been collecting Handel operas and oratorias for some years now, and these are my top recommendations:

1) Ariodante - Minkowski: the best Handel opera recording ever made, extremely dramatic and world class performances from the whole cast. Lynne Dawson is the definitive Handel soprano, Ewa Podles wickedness impersonated, Richard Croft a Handel tenor in the league of Rolfe-Johnson. Marc Minkowski is immortalized with this recording.

2) Alcina - Hickox: recorded in 1985, at the beginning of the Handel revival. Arleen Auger is unforgettable as the sorceress and the conducting of Hickox is truly magical. Although I like the Morgana (Gauvin) on the Curtis set more, and Fleming as Alcina with Christie has her moments, this remains the best overall performance of one of Handels best operas.

3) Agrippina - Gardiner: Handel can be funny, Della Jones is not the most pleasant voice to listen to, but what a vocal actress! She has you in her spell from her first words 'Nerone, amato figlio'. Yes, recitatives in Baroque opera can be as compelling as the arias. Alastair Miles stands out as Claudio, a great deep bass who brings out all the irony of this role.

4) Semele - Nelson: Another one of those great librettos, and absolute delight in the opera house (the staging of Robert Carsen!). Kathleen Battle has all the virtuosity a Semele needs, I only wish Antony Rolfe-Johnson (Jupiter in the Gardiner recording) would have joined her.

Nico

Noted! I have one Handel piece (not even sure if it is opera or oratorio), so this is something of a hole. The one I have is  L'Allegro, Il Penseroso Ed Il Moderato. I almost never listen to it, but picked it up for $1 used. It's the Erato/Gardiner version.

[nico1616]

Noted! I have one Handel piece (not even sure if it is opera or oratorio), so this is something of a hole. The one I have is  L'Allegro, Il Penseroso Ed Il Moderato. I almost never listen to it, but picked it up for $1 used. It's the Erato/Gardiner version.

Gardiner's L'allegro is in my collection but I hardly listen to it. For one, I have trouble with understanding the poetic English language as a non-English speaker. Therefore for me, that particular recording is not easy to listen to, although it got lots of raving reviews...

[71 dB]

That would be my number 5 
Super performance!

I need to listen to this again! I buy CDs but I don't listen to them enough! Crazy...

I also have several oratorios on Naxos (Acis and Galatea, Athalia, Deborah, Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verità, Messiah and Saul).  There is also Belshazzar (Pinnock),  Messiah (Solti), Susanna (McGegan) and an excepts disc of Giulio Cesare (Jacobs) in my collection as well as Theodora (Christie), Teseo (Katschner), Semele (Christie) and Giulio Cesare (Christie) on DVD.

[Octave]

Mainly a bump to thank everyone who contributed to this marvelous thread; it's been such a useful resource, along with the epic Handel thread at Amazon's classical forum ('Il Caro Sassone'):
http://www.amazon.com/forum/classical%20music/ref=cm_cd_pg_newest?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx2O5YQ79OVJBUQ&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx2SJBQFO4IGN98&displayType=tagsDetail
(not better than our thread, but still informative to me, mainly in terms of available recordings)

I just purchased the following after deliberating for a while:

[asin]B000NOKA9O[/asin]
Handel: AGRIPPINA [Gardiner - released by Philips, 3cd]

A wild favorite among Handelians, apparently.  I love the arias I've heard.  John Wall of NewOlde spelled out his clear preference for the McGegan, but that one is out of print and rather expensive for remaining new copies.  I found the Gardiner pretty cheap and decided from samples that it would do nicely.  We'll see!

John Wall's comparison of the two, quoted in full below:
http://www.newolde.com/agrippina.htm

I wrote the following comments in May 1997, soon after Gardiner's recording was released. Like McGegan's version, it was recorded in 1991, but Philips inexplicably held it back for more than five years. When the Gardiner recording finally came out, Polygram promoted it aggressively. Gramophone made it the cover story, with Sir John (or is it Sir Elliot) on the cover, a special write-up in the front, and a completely uncritical review by Stanley Sadie in the opera section. In consideration no doubt, Polygram purchased the glossy inside front cover of the magazine to feature the set. Goldberg Magazine later reported that six of 10 European music review magazines had given the Gardiner Agrippina their highest possible ratings.

Not surprisingly, the commercial classical music magazines got it wrong. Although Gardiner's recording surpasses McGegan's in a few respects, overall, the Harmonia Mundi set is the better of the two.

Both recordings are essentially complete. The only cut that I have detected is the omission by McGegan of the ballet music at the end of Act III, probably because no dancers were engaged for the Göttingen production. The final chorus was moved from before to after Giunone's aria to end the opera. The ballet music does not appear in the HG edition of Agrippina.

The Philips recording sounds constricted in comparison with the lively Harmonia Mundi recording, particularly in orchestral movements. The Harmonia Mundi recording seems to have a wider sound stage, and consequently sounds more like an actual performance.

The Harmonia Mundi version is also better conducted by McGegan. His tempos are brisk, and he has followed Handel's original orchestration. Gardiner takes some movements at a painfully slow pace. Allowing for the extra 3:16 of ballet music performed by Gardiner, his recording is 6:46 longer than McGegan's. In addition, Gardiner adds non-historical organ continuo to many arias, which detracts from the performance, in my opinion. Unfortunately, he is not alone among "authentic" conductors in reorchestrating Handel operas, as the same thing has been done by Robert King, William Christie, René Jacobs and others. At least this recording was made before the emergence of the strumming guitar fad.

Neither recording is well cast. The only truly outstanding performance on the Harmonia Mundi set is delivered by Gloria Banditelli as Giunone, who has but one (spectacular) aria. Two singers stand out on the Philips recording -- Michael Chance as Ottone and Alistair Miles as Claudio, and I would recommend buying the Philips set to hear their arias if for no other reason. Drew Minter sings Ottone quite well on Harmonia Mundi, but Chance simply is best of the five falsettists on the two sets. Nicholas Isherwood on Harmonia Mundi lacks the strength in the lower range required for Claudio's challenging arias, written for the great bass, Carli.

The Agrippina and Poppea on Harmonia Mundi (Sally Bradshaw and Lisa Saffer respectively) easily surpass those on Philips (Della Jones and Donna Brown). The latter, Brown in particular, have a modern operatic style that clashes with the early instruments. Nerone is seriously miscast on both recordings. On Harmonia Mundi, his beautiful sicilianos suffer under the heavy vibrato of Wendy Hill, and on Philips, Derek Lee Ragin strains at the upper limits of his falsetto range in the soprano castrato part. The minor castrato part of Narcisso is sung adequately on both recordings, by Ralf Popken on Harmonia Mundi and by Jonathan Peter Kenny on Philips.

Since Agrippina was composed for Venice, there was of course no original English version of the wordbook. Harmonia Mundi and Philips commissioned independent English translations, of which the poetic translation by Anne Ridler for Harmonia Mundi is clearly superior. Harmonia Mundi reproduces the Argumento from the original wordbook, but Philips does not. For a translation of the Argumento, see the chapter on Agrippina in Dean and Knapp, Handel's Operas, 1706-1726 (Oxford University Press). In addition, the Harmonia Mundi booklet includes photos of the Göttingen stage production. The fine costumes, by Bonnie Krueger, were brought to New York for a student production in 1996. Philips does not furnish total times for its three CDS. They are: Disc 1: 74:37; Disc 2: 73:29; Disk 3: 68:49.

Thus, in conclusion, I prefer McGegan's performance. Another recording with a more consistent cast of early music singers would be welcome.
- John Wall

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I just purchased the following after deliberating for a while:

[asin]B000NOKA9O[/asin]
Handel: AGRIPPINA [Gardiner - released by Philips, 3cd]

A wild favorite among Handelians, apparently.  I love the arias I've heard.  John Wall of NewOlde spelled out his clear preference for the McGegan, but that one is out of print and rather expensive for remaining new copies.  I found the Gardiner pretty cheap and decided from samples that it would do nicely.  We'll see!

Yeah, Agrippina is a lyric extravaganza! One of Handel's best.

[nico1616]

I just purchased the following after deliberating for a while:

[asin]B000NOKA9O[/asin]
Handel: AGRIPPINA [Gardiner - released by Philips, 3cd]

A wild favorite among Handelians, apparently.  I love the arias I've heard.  John Wall of NewOlde spelled out his clear preference for the McGegan, but that one is out of print and rather expensive for remaining new copies.  I found the Gardiner pretty cheap and decided from samples that it would do nicely.  We'll see!

Although I love the NewOlde website, John Wall can be extremely conservative in his preferences. He likes his Handel operas to be galant, even tame and always disapproves of dramatic excitement. If I read his negative reviews of some of the great Naïve Vivaldi recordings, I can only shake my head.
To prefer the boring McGegan Agrippina to Gardiner's funny and tasteful recording, does not sound logic at all.
Enjoy your Gardiner, with an almost perfect cast

[Tsaraslondon]

Only a few more weeks to go now to the concert performance of Radamisto at the Barbican, with David Daniels in the title role. I don't know the opera well, though I have a couple of isolated arias on various recital discs.

There's a recording on Virgin Media, with Joyce DiDonato. Is this the best one to go for?

[The new erato]

Although I love the NewOlde website, John Wall can be extremely conservative in his preferences. He likes his Handel operas to be galant, even tame and always disapproves of dramatic excitement. If I read his negative reviews of some of the great Naïve Vivaldi recordings, I can only shake my head.

Not my impression at all. But he dissaproves of dramatic licence making some of these recordings "over the top" compared to what he percieves as being the composers ntentions, and at least in a few cases he's probably right.

[nico1616]

Only a few more weeks to go now to the concert performance of Radamisto at the Barbican, with David Daniels in the title role. I don't know the opera well, though I have a couple of isolated arias on various recital discs.

There's a recording on Virgin Media, with Joyce DiDonato. Is this the best one to go for?

The only competition I know is McGegan, who has a second rate cast and is quite boring.
The Curtis is not a desert island disc, but at least you get some great singers such as DiDonato, Ciofi and Beaumont.

[nico1616]

Not my impression at all. But he dissaproves of dramatic licence making some of these recordings "over the top" compared to what he percieves as being the composers ntentions, and at least in a few cases he's probably right.

Any critic who prefers McGegan's Ariodante to Minkowski's, has a complete different view on Handel operas than me. They have a potential for real drama, and Minkowsi delivers just that. The same is true for the Spinosi Vivaldi recordings which are bashed on NewOlde because of the vigorous attacks of the instruments or exteme tempi.
Well, I happen to love Minkowski and Spinosi because they get in the music like that and deliver something more than beautiful sound.