Customer Reviews

The Glories of Handel Opera ~ Kirkby · Sutherland · Tebaldi · Berganza · Horne · Bowman · Pavarotti

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This fine CD is an anthology of splendid performances dating from 1960-1995 by the world's most celebrated opera singers of great music by Handel, who in my opinion wrote better for the voice than anyone else. Enjoy! You will listen to it again and again.

I bought this album a while back because I've taken an interest in Baroque music recently, and I was not disappointed. This truly is a glorious recording of Handel Opera. Of course with singers like Pavarotti, Sutherland, Horne, Tebaldi it would have to be above average. Sutherland ends the album with a dazzling display of vocal dexterity in "Da tempeste il legno infranto". Even when she sings the 16th note runs each note still has clarity. And Pavarotti is delectable in "Care Selve". I could give a review of each song but there's no need for that because each track on this is marvellous in its own way. Buy this album.

This volume actually updates an old tape--which I still own!--by adding some of the more recent interest in historical performance practices to some of the older operatic show-biz types on display here.

I very much enjoy Sutherland and similar performers in this material. Talk about razzle-dazzle. Singers like Pavarotti and Tebaldi bring a lot of know-how about beautiful music to Handel, and that is never unwelcome.

While they might not have been terribly musicologically-informed, performers like Sutherland, Horne and Berganza certainly knew more about period performance practices: they indeed initiated the resurgence of such practices in the last three decades. Do other reviewers here perhaps forget that in preferring Dessay over Sutherland?

Meanwhile for the purists, Hogwood, Kirkby and Bowman are certainly more in the original instruments/authenticity-fetish camp: if memory serves, they were not included in the old cassette version. Clearly Decca is aware of the change in performing styles--and perhaps audience tastes--even as they are reflected on this very Amazon page. Frankly, I could use less of these and more of the old-timers.

So yes, this is a mix of old and new. The newest trends are not included. But are they not readily available elsewhere? Meanwhile, like its earlier incarnations, this set is still a marvelous compilation of gorgeous music-making from the deep Decca catalog.

Handel operas nowadays receive impressive stage productions and become increasingly popular. This is a great collection if you want to hear some of your favourite Italian opera singers like Sutherland, Tebaldi, Pavarotti, Evans, Berganza and Horne sing Handel. Especially the young Sutherland and Pavarotti are sensational!

Considering on the other hand that Decca has now recorded many Handel operas with excellent Baroque singers, I find this recording to be somewhat outdated. It wasn't necessary for example to have Sutherland, Horne and Berganza sing two different roles when the same parts have recently been recorded by excellent newcomers like Dessay, Von Otter, or Scholl to name a few. Why stick to the past when the present has so many wonderful Handel singers?

Overall however, a decent introduction to Handel's music.