Georg Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Enchantresses
Sandrine Piau (soprano), Les Paladins/Jérôme Correas
rec. October 2020, Théâtre de Poissy, France
Sung Italian texts, with English & French translations
ALPHA CLASSICS 765 [67:20]
French soprano Sandrine Piau is here revisiting the music of Handel with this collection of opera arias. She sings nine arias from five operas: Lotario, Rinaldo, Giulio Cesare, Amadigi di Gaula and, Alcina, and the single cantata Lucrezia. Following its initial release in 2005, I was most impressed with her Handel album ‘Opera Seria’ with Les Talens Lyriques directed by Christophe Rousset on Naïve.
A former student of the Conservatoire de Paris, Piau was tutored by William Christie, Rachel Yakar and René Jacobs. She cut her teeth performing predominantly baroque music with the period-instrument movement both on stage and in the recording studio. She has worked extensively with Christie and Les Arts Florissants, with Jacobs as the director of a number of early music ensembles, and with Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, plus a number of renowned early music exponents including Emmanuelle Haïm, Ton Koopman, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Marc Minkowski, Raphaël Pichon, Andrea Marcon et al. She has won many plaudits for her Handel roles, conspicuously as the eponymous heroine in Handel’s opera Alcina.
The title of the album, ‘Enchantresses’, refers to the arias sung by female characters in Handel’s operas and cantatas who are nearly always queens, sirens and sorceresses. In the booklet notes, Piau recalls how her portrayals of Handel women tended to be ‘light-hearted, pirouetting heroines’ which she contrasts on this album with a number of arias sung by ‘powerful, often wounded women.’ Expressly, Piau finds the sorceresses Alcina and Melissa to be ‘more intoxicating heroines’ than the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and the sorceress Morgana in their courageous, even if ultimately ineffective, resistance to male dominance.
Of the few brisk arias, Queen Adelaide’s Scherza in mar la navicella (The little boat frolics on the sea) from the opera Lotario is striking. Piau demonstrates her expertise with the tricky rhythms and in displaying effective coloratura, as Adelaide expresses the hope that heart will prevail over adversity, even when confronted by death. The prominent and impressively written solo trumpet part creates a special frisson when combined with the soprano voice.
The collection contains several of Handel’s greatest and most beautiful arias; it is in the slow ones where Piau stands out, as her refined and expressive voice is there allowed the space to bloom. Piau is familiar with role of Alcina, a beautiful yet devious sorceress who seduces every hero she lures to her island palace. In her aria Ah, mio cor, Piau’s portrayal is remarkably convincing; Alcina has been betrayed by the knight Ruggiero and becomes furiously vengeful. Eminently successful, too, is Almirena’s much-loved aria Lascia ch'io pianga from Rinaldo; Almirena, the daughter of the Crusader army chief, has been kidnapped and imprisoned, and asks for pity on her fate. Piau’s singing is beautifully effective; she has the ability to express profoundly and distinctively emotions every character’s perspective. In a polished and accomplished performance, her lines are long and secure, and her phrasing is adept, revealing an attractive tone.
The twenty-two-strong period-instrument ensemble here is directed by Jérôme Correas. They play ebulliently in the quicker arias and lend what sounds like an innate sensitivity to the lament arias. Correas has interspersed among the arias instrumental movements from Handel’s set of twelve Concerti Grossi, op. 6: two movements from No. 4 in A minor, a single movement from No. 6 in G minor plus the overture from the opera Amadigi di Gaula. Les Paladins provide consistently striking, committed, appealingly-toned playing throughout. I would have preferred it if instead of spreading out the Concerti Grossi movements, they had included some overtures from the operas.
The sound engineers here have provided first-class sonics which benefit from clarity and splendid balance. Contributing to the high production values of the album, the accompanying booklet has introductory notes by both Sandrine Piau and Jérôme Correas, plus a helpful essay ‘Handel’s Heroine’ by Barbara Nestola. Invaluable, too, is the inclusion of sung Italian texts with English and French translations.
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
Contents
Lotario, HWV 26
1. Aria, Scherza in mar la navicella (Adelaide)
Rinaldo, HWV7
2. Aria, Il vostro Maggio (Sirene)
Giulio Cesare, HWV 17
3. Da tempeste il legno infrato (Cleopatra)
Concerti grossi, op. 6
4. No. 4 in A minor, Larghetto affettuoso
Giulio Cesare, HWV 17
5. Recitative, E pur cosi in un giorno (Cleopatra)
6. Aria, Piangero, la sorte mia (Cleopatra)
Concerti grossi, op. 6
7. No. 4 in A minor, Allegro
Cantata 'Lucrezia' (O Numi eterni), HWV 45
8. Aria, Alla salma infedel porga la pena (Lucrezia)
Alcina, HWV34
9. Aria, Ah, mio cor
Amadigi di Gaula, HWV 11 (Alcina)
10. Overture
11. Aria, Destero dall'empia dite (Melissa)
Concerti grossi, op. 6
12. No. 6 in G minor, Larghetto e affetuoso
Alcina, HWV 34
13. Aria, Tornami a vagheggiar (Morgana)
Rinaldo, HWV 7a
14. Aria, Lascia ch'io pianga (Almirena)
