Track Listing

1. Recit Ah! Whither should we fly, or fly from whom?
2. Aria As with rosy steps the morn - Act 1 Scene 4
3. Recit O bright example of all goodness!
4. Aria Bane of virtue, nurse of passions - Act 1 Scene 3
5. Recit The clouds begin to veil the hemisphere
6. Aria Defend her Heav'n! - Act 2 Scene 4
7. Aria Lord, to Thee each night and day - Act 3 Scene 1
8. Recit She's gone, disdaining liberty and life
9. Aria New scenes of joy - Act 3 Scene 3
10. Recit O Numi eterni! O stelle, stelle!
11. Aria Già superbo, del mio affano
12. Recit Ma voi forse nel cielo
13. Aria Il suol che preme, l'aura che spira
14. Recit Ah! che ancor nell'abisso
15. Aria Alla salma infedel porga la pena
16. Recit A voi, a voi, padre, consorte
17. Arioso Già nel seno comincia a compir Furioso Ma se qui non m'è dato
18. Aria Se bramate d'amar, chi vi sdegna - Act 2 Scene 4
19. Recit Frondi tenere e belle
20. Aria Ombra mai fù - Act 1 Scene 1

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22193 in Music
• Released on: 2004-05-31
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Hybrid SACD
• Dimensions: .26 pounds
• Running time: 67 minutes

The Guardian June 4 2004
This is a quite exceptional disc

Music Week June 8 2004
Sumptuous surround sound here does full justice to the richness of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's voice

London Evening Standard June 4 2004
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson lavishes her rich and expressive voice upon some of Handel's most beautiful and moving music

Customer Reviews

Hunt Lieberson explores Handel
Fifteen years ago this disc would probably have received a less extatic welcome. At that time we were still in thrall to the expressionless white tone of the Early Music specialists. To an extent we have moved away from this way of singing and listening to Bach and Handel through singers such as Ann Sophie von Otter.

However, with Hunt Lieberson we are back, in the best sense, to the supra-expressiveness and wide range of tone colours of the likes of Janet Baker. Here we see the 'face' of the singer.

Hunt Lieberson has been lauded for the spiritual aspect of her singing and in the Theodora items she pours out beautiful tone getting to the heart of this music expressing faith. 'As with rosy steps' becomes a benediction and she fines her tone down to a penetrating but tender thread. Throughout the disc she also makes the silences work dramatically rather than simply exist between the notes. It says much for the singer that the conductor of the disc, Harry Bicket, part financed the disc to ensure these performances were preserved. He and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment serve her and the music well.

The other major item here is the early Italian cantata, 'La Lucretia' We and Hunt Lieberson know this through Janet Baker's first rate performance. However, the new performance finds different light and shades and again the singer inhabits rather than illustrates the character of Lucretia. A performance full of detail and flashes of temperament marvelously sung.

Finally two arias from Serse; where even 'Ombra mai fu' comes up fresh and tender.

A must have disc. Please, we need some more from this singer, now surely in the prime of her vocal and interperative powers. This is art that illuminates truth and experience.

Exceptional communication
Well, she is no longer with us - and that gives her recorded legacy both an added poignancy and value. She is, above all, a communicator - her passion for the music, combined with refined musicianship and consummate technique, come straight to the listener. Every word she sings is invested with such colour and meaning without being in the slightest bit 'arty'. She sings with a blazing conviction which goes straight to the gut.

If you buy this disk, not knowing her artistry - and of course you should as it is so far from the commonplace, anodyne food which is so often put out by the recording companies - then you will be led on a voyage of discovery. I am not such a great fan of opera on DVD but please do buy Theodora by Handel from Glyndebourne - to see her as well as hear her while she sings irene's arias is to pass beyond an awareness of singing and acting into a realm of being. An altogether superlative artist who is sorely missed.

Music to Lift the Heart
The female voice is the most poignant weapon available to a composer, and it is used here with power, control, elegance, and delicacy. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sang some of this music at Glyndebourne (Handel's opera Theodora, available on DVD-ASIN B00023BN4M) and it was, according to the reviewers, "one of the most vocally beautiful and dramatically committed characterizations imaginable."
It is much, much more than that. It is an emotional ambush, and the music lover who does not weep on hearing this beautiful recording has no soul. Sometimes you get more than perfection, and this is one of those times.
Lieberson is magnificent, but there are many heroes on this recording--Harry Bicket (conductor of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment-a wonderful, true name), still at the time of the recording a half-year away from his triumph at the Met, and the recording engineers. But perhaps most of all, second only to Lieberson, Phoebe Carrai and the celli of the Orchestra who cradle her voice in a mother's hands.
I wasn't prepared for this experience, and the emotional impact was amazing. I had heard part of the recording ("Ombra mai fu") at a Christmas party full of musicians. Everyone hushed, even the children--it was that compelling. I knew this was going to be special, but at home, playing the whole CD for the first time, I heard "As with rosy steps..." from Theodora and was stunned.
Of course Lorraine has a beautiful voice, but she also has breath control which allows her an interpretative freedom that simply sets her apart and above her contemporaries. The notes may be as fragile as dandelion seeds on the wind, but they alight where she wills them to, and with an intelligence, taste, and delicacy that is hard to believe. What we hear is years of effort spent developing the instrument and the interpretative insight that directs it.
On the other hand, one of the true glories of this recording is the orchestral playing, directed by Bicket. The strings are ravishing, especially the celli. I have never heard playing like this; it is rich, glowing, elegant, and emotive. I have to say that, however beautifully Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings, if it were not for the strings that surround and support her voice, this disk would not have been a leading Grammy candidate. But paired, the vocal and instrumental lines create something without parallel.
This is one of "The Great Recordings."