<<  -- 3 --  Peter Dale    BREACH OF CONVENTIONS?

Monica Bacelli as Tamerlano is cruel, whimsical, political and irresistible. Asteria, Bajazet's abused daughter (Elisabeth Norberg-Schulz) has awesome resources of steel-cold determination worthy even of a Turandot [listen -- CD1 track 17, 0:00-1:23]. The timbre of Graham Pushee's alto Andronico, Asteria's compromised lover, is very close indeed, however, to Bacelli's contralto, and sometimes you wish for a slightly greater degree of differentiation [listen -- CD3 track 24, 0:08-0:27]. Perhaps the overlapping was entailed in rushed revisions (of voices and tessituras) that Handel himself made before the first performances to take advantage of two singers whose reputations he knew but not, at first hand, their voices. In the theatre, this would be no problem because costume, stature, blocking etc would more than compensate for a similarity of voices, but on a recording it presents a little difficulty, no matter how accomplished or intrinsically beautiful the voices.

Handel enthusiasts will regard these discs as indispensable. Now that this erstwhile 'specialist' baroque opera is well and truly out of the early music ghetto, anyone with an ear for great music will probably follow suit.

For help listening to the sound extracts here, please refer to our questions & answers page.