Handel - Alcina

[Héctor]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfAnf8WIDW0"]Handel - Alcina[/ame]

By Joan Sutherland

[MrGuizot]

One of our best American sopranos, Arleen Auger, also recorded this role. I have not heard the recording, but heard her perform Alcina live in Los Angeles in the late 80s. It was a performance of incredible depth and power. She is also wondrous in Schubert lieder.

Much as I love Sutherland , this performance doesn't impress me as much as some of her other singing. Indeed. her readings of other arias in the same recording can hardly be bettered (e.g., "Tornami a vagheggiar"). And she set a standard in her Acis and Galatea recording under Sir Adrian Boult.

Handel's Siciliana pieces, ravishing as they are, can be challenging to perform, I find. The rhythms can sound somewhat stiff -- often difficult to find the right combination of fluidity and emotional expression. Here Sutherland could have helped herself by relying a little less on descending portamento and langourous diminuendos on sustained notes.