Customer Reviews

Sandrine Piau - Mozart Opera Arias

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sandrine Piau's voice is beautiful - that goes almost without saying. It has a limpid clarity that also contains a delicacy and warmth. She has clearly articulated coloratua and a lovely legato when she needs it - and certainly one needs it with Mozart!

This recording delighted me enormously when I first purchased it. Mozart is notorious for singers - one must have true beauty in the voice, because Mozart leaves the voice dangerously exposed. What looks easy on the page is not quite that easy to sing well. Thankfully, Sandrine Piau demonstrates perfectly how to sing Mozart soprano arias, and she does a wonderful job of incorporating the lyrical and the bedazzling - the intimate and the grand.

Her rendition of "Ach, ich fühl's" is well nigh perfect, and who could listen to her "Ruhe sanft" without sighing with pleasure? Ms Piau sings with impeccable phrasing and superb support, allowing the tone to fill the space without going too far. The danger in "Ruhe sanft" is for the singer to become swoony and droopy, swooping up to notes or holding on for too long - but no such faux pas occurs in this rendition. Just beautiful, beautiful sound and very lovely emotional interpretation that NEVER strays beyond the genuine classical style.

The faster arias - for instance, "Al destin, che la minaccia" - are spun with wonderful articulation and in perfect control. Lovely to listen to - impressively maintained energy-wise - and it makes one long to hear Ms Piau in a major Mozartian role requiring that lovely blend of grace, charm and coloratura.

Finally, I cannot possibly end this review without mentioning the very fine performance of "Traurigkeit ward mir zum Lose" on this CD. Once again, the sense of genuine emotion well controlled makes this a stunning rendition. The role of Konstanze is not that of a vocal battleship, but impeccable Mozart style, magnificently controlled coloratura, a beautiful and blooming tone, the required range, and the stamina of a steel butterfly - that is what is required. And that is precisely what Ms Piau gives us.

Wonderful singing, gorgeous arias... This is my favourite recording of Sandrine Piau - in my opinion, it's finer than her more recent Handel recording. It may well be a desert island disc.

I have nothing but complete and utter praise for this superb recording by this wonderful and talented singer and the great period instrument orchestra backing her.

Sandrine Piau has always impressed me - I think I first noticed her in a big way in William Christie's wonderful recording of Jean-Philippe Rameau's opera Les Indes Galantes, made with his Les Arts Florissants ensemble.

Sandrine Piau brings much beauty, colour, expression, style and intelligence to anything she sings. I love her voice.

Her Mozart is divine. Listen to "Ah se il crudel periglio" from Lucio Silla and you will buy this album!

5 stars? I'd give it 10 if I could!

Now that you own this disc, you should immediately consider buying Natalie Dessay's collection of Mozart Arias - "Mozart Heroines", made with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Both ladies bring many different things to Mozart. I like both of them very much. Piau sings the arias which require pathos with great skill and feeling. Dessay's command of coloratura is powerful and impressive. Of course, Piau handles coloratura with skill, too, and Dessay can break your heart in the slower and more pathetique arias.

Buy Sandrine Piau's Mozart or buy Natalie Dessay's Mozart ... what the hell! Do as I did - buy both!

Sandrine Piau takes on Mozart in this CD. And she does nicely indeed. This is an interesting set of arias, in that we hear pieces from works not normally heard, such as "Mitradate, re di Ponto." Piau, a soprano, is backed ably by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, led by Gottfried von der Goltz.

Some cuts that display her work:

From "Lucia Silla," "In un istante oh come." She displays a rich, smooth voice. This is early Mozart (a 1772 composition). The orchestral support is very nicely done. She clearly shows us that she is comfortable with Mozart's music.

From the same work, "Parto m'affreto." This is sung at a more animated pace than the just mentioned work, and Piau handles the faster tempo very well. She shows nice vocal agility and some good staccato technique. There seems to my untutored ears to be a bit of harshness toward the close, but not a big deal.

From "The Magic Flute," Pamina's "Ach ich fuhl's." This is a lyrical piece as conceived and executed by Mozart. Piau captures the sweetness of this "love song" very well indeed, as she sings of her love for Tamino (English translation):

"If you do not feel love's longings,
My peace must be in death."

Of course, he did return her feelings, so all ends well.

From "Mitradate," "Al destin che la minaccia." Piau displays, again, very solid vocal agility, including well rendered appoggiaturas and nice staccato singing toward the close. At a couple points, I thought she might exhibit a bit of vocal harshness, but not a problem. She executes a nice decent high note toward the end.

So, all in all, a good rendering of Mozartiana. She has a nice voice, good agility, provides some nice characterization as she sings. A pretty satisfying CD!

Last year, when I was on holiday in France, they regularly played the last aria sung on this cd, 'Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben..'.
Apart from the beautiful melody, I was fascinated by the beauty of the singers voice.
So crystal-clear and somehow peaceful, sounding so effortless..
Like the voice of an angel..
And that marvellous voice was accompanied so exceptionally well by the Freiburger Barockorchester, supporting and emphasizing it, instead of overruling it, as so often happens in such cases.
Every time the sender played this aria, I just stopped doing whatever I was doing right then and listened,
joy filling my heart, mixed with a strange longing - there is an undertone of sadness in the melody too.
When I got home again, I started searching, and did find the aria sung by many other great singers too.
One even very, very close to this one - to my opinion - from a French colleague of Sandrine, Natalie Dessay.
But it was Sandrine's voice that kept haunting me - and now I finally found it.
The whoie cd is a treasure, so I have just one very simple advice - buy it and enjoy it!!

This is probably one of the definitive recordings of Mozart arias for soprano. Sandrine Piau is an exquisite artist who possesses a beautiful coloratura soprano that she uses with skill and panache. None of the vocal difficulties of these arias terrify her: she tosses the most difficult fioritura with ease and musicality, with perfect control of her high register (high Ds galore on this recording). This is particularly in evidence in the impossibly difficult arias from Lucio Silla and Mitridate, re di Ponto. Her da capo ornamentations are both showy and respectful of the composer's original compositions. In more lyrical arias Piau is also winning, floating those long, high-lying phrases in the last selection from Zaide in the most delightful manner. Piau's voice is small though, and I wonder how appropriate will she be in live performances of Pamina and Konstanze. However, in this recording there is nothing lacking to her sound, technique or interpretation. Gottfried von der Goltz conducts the Freiburger barockorchester with great attention to the skills of the soloists, becoming a real partner with Piau. The selection of tempi is just right. This will be a CD that you will like to play over and over again.

High, light, focused voice singing impeccable coloratura, passionate legato. Mozart wrote some of this music when he was 14 years old; what an incredible talent. Ms. Piau made it sound easy. This CD is on 'repeat' in my car's player, helping me learn. Sandrine, where is your next CD?

As the editorial reviewer pointed out, this is indeed gorgeous singing. Her voice is passionate yet balanced, never compromising vocal acuity for heart-on-sleave emotion. Piau is a very promising singer whom we will probably hear much more of soon. However, at times this album does give the impression of being more of a exhibition of virtuosity than a recital (even they are usually the same).

Hace ya algunos años que he estado siguiendo todas las posibles grabaciones de sandrine Piau, tanto en el repertorio operístico como en el de concierto. En lo que se refiere al repertorio operístico, Sandrine Piau ha sido muy cuidadosa moviéndose sólamente dentro de la ópera barroca y aventurándose muy ocasionalmente a obras más pesadas de Handel y a alguna que otra incursión en el Mozart temprano. En el terreno de concierto la discografía es muy amplia pero también centrada en la música antigüa y barroca, por lo que este disco resulta, al menos aparentemente, como una propuesta de la soprano de extender su repertorio hacia un Mozart más dinámico, y hay que decirlo de una vez, el resultado es más que satisfactorio.

Sandrine Piau tiene una voz de una calidad excepcional, el sonido es claro, limpio, brillante, pero al mismo tiempo acariciante, cálido, dulce... el fraseo es excelente y está equipada con una armazón de coloratura sorprendente y una linea de canto de pianisimos aterciopelados que nunca son fortuitos, sino perfectamente subordinados a la intención comunicante de la soprano.

Pocas veces he oido "S'altro che lagrime" más dulce y más convincente, realmente sincero, sin amaneramientos y lleno de calidez; y qué decir de las arias de bravura! Realmente Sandrine Piau es una Aspasia completa que lo hace a uno pensar en la posibilidad, que no se dio, de que ella hiciera ese personaje en la grabación de DECCA; y las arias de Lucio Silla son formidables, aunque uno no deja de extrañar el tamaño y el control de una voz como la de Edita Gruberova...

En resumen: este es un disco es una joya imprescindible que todos los que gusten de Mozart y de una voz que le haga plena justicia estoy seguro van a atesorar, y por otro lado, espero, también sea una promesa de nuevas grabaciones de esta artista, porque Sandrine Piau, más que una cantante excepcional es una gran artista y en este disco lo demuestra.