Cleopatra -Arias from Giulio Cesare : Dessay(S)E.Haim / Le Concert d'Astree

Handel: Cleopatra - Arias from Giulio Cesare

Handel: Giulio Cesare HWV 17
Overture
Tutto puo` donna vezzosa
V' adoro, pupille
Venere bella
Vuo dar vita
Piangero la sorte mia
Troppo crudeli siete
Da tempeste il legno infranto
Caro! Bella! Piu amabile belta

Natalie Dessay, soprano
Sonia Prina, contralto - Stephen Wallace, countertenor
Le Concert d’Astree / Emmanuelle Haim, conductor

Recorded 11/2010

Soprano Natalie Dessay, conductor Emanuelle Haim and composer George Frideric Handel make an established - and admired - team. Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare is a new role for Dessay at the Paris Opera in early 2011, and it is in these arias that the Egyptian queen shows her proverbial “infinite variety”. At the Paris Opera in early 2011, Natalie Dessay takes on the new role of Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, now the most popular of all the composer’s stage works. The many facets of the Egyptian queen - captured by Shakespeare in the phrase “infinite variety” - are depicted in a sequence of contrasting arias, both lyrical and brilliant, making the character a superb showcase for the French soprano’s talents as a singing actress.

Conducting the impressive cast and the period-instrument orchestra Le Concert d'Astree at the Opera - and on this new recording of excerpts from Giulio Cesare - is Emmanuelle Haim, who first collaborated with Dessay in the late 1990s; both artists were involved in a Paris production of Handel’s Alcina, Haim as repetiteur (for William Christie) and Dessay in the sparkling role of Morgana. Since then, the two have developed a close working relationship which has produced a number of Virgin Classics recordings, including several works by Handel: cantatas (in a collection called Delirio), the Dixit Dominus and the oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del desinganno, a recording which left the French magazine Diapason “looking forward to Emmanuelle Haim’s next exciting Handelian adventure”.

Dessay describes Haim as the metteur en scene - the stage director - for her voice, while Haim describes Dessay’s voice as “an exceptional instrument which can take on a thousand forms ... Its virtuosity and flexibility make you forget all the difficulties presented by the music.” Haim goes on to say that: “Handel is the composer for the voice. He demands special qualities that Natalie possesses: an ability to create colours, to embody words in song and to let the imagination speak.”

Reviewing Il trionfo del tempo e del desinganno, Le Monde de la Musique observed that “the virtuosity and rich palette of Le Concert d’Astree enable Emanuelle Haim to match the colours and tempo to the emotion expressed”, while the New York Times wrote that: “Ms. Haim directs the superb Baroque orchestra Le Concert d'Astree in a fleet, immaculate performance that dances among airy, profound and sensuous moods. The excellent quartet of singers is led by the radiant, bright voice of the soprano Natalie Dessay, whose rapturous Bellezza traverses innocence, defiance and penitence by way of some impressively agile coloratura. ’Tu del ciel ministro eletto', her spare, haunting final aria with plaintive violin accompaniment, is glorious.” In Britain, the The Sunday Times found that “Natalie Dessay dazzles in Beauty’s arias - she is gorgeous in the sublime penitential concluding number … With Haim conducting with elan, this is the best available version of this glorious score.” ( EMI )