Anja Harteros, Veselina Kasarova - Georg Friedrich Händel - Alcina (2007)

The quality of the vocal performances in this live recording of Alcina can be strongly correlated to the singers' prior experience in the Baroque repertoire. Contralto Sonia Prina, with a solid background in Baroque opera, is absolutely stellar in the role of Bradamante, a woman impersonating a man in her quest to release her lover from the spells of the sorceress Alcina. Her technique is completely secure, her tone is clear and bright, her coloratura is dazzling, and her characterization is impassioned. Soprano Veronica Cangemi, as Alcina's sister Morgana, infatuated with the man she takes Bradamante to be, is equally remarkable, singing with lightness, fluidity, and florid brilliance. Likewise, tenor John Mark Ainsley as Oronte, Alcina's general, is a veteran of early opera performance, and he sings with extraordinary grace and power. As the leads, Alcina and her bewitched lover, Ruggiero, soprano Anja Harteros and mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova are very fine, but they don't have the idiomatic security to bring the music and drama fully and easily alive. The role of Alcina seems to fall a little high for Harteros (whose recording of Violetta revealed her as a star of the first magnitude), and she doesn't bring the luster and authority to the part that Renée Fleming does on the Erato recording. The timbre of Vesselina Kasarova's dark mezzo is well suited to the trousers role or Ruggiero, and while she doesn't have the effortless fluency with the idiom as some of the other soloists, her singing is often gorgeous, as in "Mi lusinga il dolce affetto." The live recording captures the urgency of the recitatives, which nicely move the action along. Ivor Bolton leads the Bayerischen Staatsorchester, obviously operating with reduced forces, in a nuanced and expressive reading of the score. For a recording of this caliber, there is a surprisingly high level of stage noise, which the listener may be willing to accept as a tradeoff for the energy of the live performance.