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Track Listings
| 1. Orfeo: Dall'amor piu sventurato - Nicola Antonio Porpora |
| 2. Idaspe: Ombra fedele anch'io - Riccardo Broschi |
| 3. Idaspe: Qual guerriero in campo armato - Riccardo Broschi |
| 4. Adrianno in Siria: Mancare, Dio, mi sento - Geminiano Giacomelli |
| 5. Grave - Baldassare Galuppi |
| 6. Allegro - Baldassare Galuppi |
| 7. Andante - Allegretto Tranquillo - Andante - Baldassare Galuppi |
| 8. Polifemo: Oh volesser gli Dei...Dolci freschi anrette - Nicola Antonio Porpora |
| 9. Polifemo: Or la nube procellosa - Nicola Antonio Porpora |
| 10. Artaserse: Per questo dolce amplesso - Johann Adolf Hasse |
| 11. Merope: Quell'usignolo - Geminiano Giacomelli |
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This lady needs no introduction. No singer I have ever heard has the technical virtuosity that she has. Her tone quality stretches and is perfectly even over more than two and a half octaves. Never shrill or airy, Vivica Genaux sings with a voice of beauty and clarity beyond any other soprano or mezzo-soprano I have ever heard in concert or recording.
The arias Miss Genaux sings on this album demonstrate her genius to perfection. My favourite is track 3.
Enjoy!
The arias Miss Genaux sings on this album demonstrate her genius to perfection. My favourite is track 3.
Enjoy!
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Bruce Adams
Format:Audio CD
The lady who sings these songs really has a nice voice, but I'm afraid that too many of this type of song can exhaust me, so I recommend listening to it in 3 or 4 sessions.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars
4 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elusively gorgeous
4 May 2008
By MK
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Audio CD
This recording has fascinated me ever since I first heard the original release in 2002. The music is hauntingly beautiful of course, but there is more to its spell. I remember one sumptuous August night when this album prompted my husband, whose own feelings toward Baroque opera are, well, lukewarm on a generous day, stop in his tracks and remark: `It sounds different in twilight. This music belongs to twilight time.' So true! There is something wondrously indefinite, even aloof, about this selection and this interpretation. Many have commented on the masculine hue of Vivica Genaux' voice on this album. I am not so sure. Her approach is not masculine or feminine or queer or whatever one might pick from the contemporary lexicon blandly intent on labelling everything. It does not fit into any of these categories. Baroque music does not either. It predates modern understandings of sensuality. It was explicitly written for sensuous pleasure, but it was not molded into a regime of truth that emerged much later. This recording creates an emotional atmosphere that is deeply concerned with beauty and pleasure and fundamentally unconcerned with core essences. There are other ways of performing this music--Cecilia Bartoli's hyper-feminine spectacle and intense commitment in `Opera Proibita' is as astounding, albeit in a different way. The selection here is more understated and more tightly stylized, and it is perhaps more hypnotizing as a result.
This is an album to which to pause in your tracks and let the everyday deliquesce: to take pleasure in and learn from a different era.
This is an album to which to pause in your tracks and let the everyday deliquesce: to take pleasure in and learn from a different era.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A leap forward in the castrato search
29 Nov 2010
By Rollo Tomassi
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Audio CD
Two issues confront us here: 1) Is this a good album?, and, more controversially, 2) Does this sound like what Farinelli must have sounded like? The answers:
1) Indubitably. As other reviewers have noted here, this recording is pure pleasure from beginning to end, as much for the wonderful accompaniment of Rene Jacobs and the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin as for Ms. Genaux herself.
2) In recent years I've greatly enjoyed the performances of various modern countertenors (Bowman, Chance, Daniels, Ragin, Scholl, Fouchecourt, et al. and Jacobs himself) in baroque castrato roles. But in an accompanying essay to this recording, Jacobs makes the case that countertenors can't cover these roles the way a good mezzo of a certain color and weight (such as Ms. Genaux) can. While I'm not 100% persuaded, recordings such as this have me leaning strongly in this direction. Genaux's combination of flexibility and power make it easy to imagine that, indeed, Farinelli may have sounded something like this. All the arias here are heavily ornamented, just as a bravura castrato would have done. The CD begins with two arias by Nicola Porpora, the Neapolitan composer and singing instructor of Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), that are the most beautiful on the disc. (Note to baroque conductors: MORE PORPORA OPERA RECORDINGS NOW. The Handel lode is nearly played out, and Porpora, Handel's competitor in London for a brief period, has many works which are almost if not equally as sublime.)
1) Indubitably. As other reviewers have noted here, this recording is pure pleasure from beginning to end, as much for the wonderful accompaniment of Rene Jacobs and the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin as for Ms. Genaux herself.
2) In recent years I've greatly enjoyed the performances of various modern countertenors (Bowman, Chance, Daniels, Ragin, Scholl, Fouchecourt, et al. and Jacobs himself) in baroque castrato roles. But in an accompanying essay to this recording, Jacobs makes the case that countertenors can't cover these roles the way a good mezzo of a certain color and weight (such as Ms. Genaux) can. While I'm not 100% persuaded, recordings such as this have me leaning strongly in this direction. Genaux's combination of flexibility and power make it easy to imagine that, indeed, Farinelli may have sounded something like this. All the arias here are heavily ornamented, just as a bravura castrato would have done. The CD begins with two arias by Nicola Porpora, the Neapolitan composer and singing instructor of Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), that are the most beautiful on the disc. (Note to baroque conductors: MORE PORPORA OPERA RECORDINGS NOW. The Handel lode is nearly played out, and Porpora, Handel's competitor in London for a brief period, has many works which are almost if not equally as sublime.)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A unique voice
10 Feb 2010
By David W. Witter
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I heard this lady live a few months ago, and decided I ** had ** to have one of her CDs. A totally unique voice -- almost "unisex", really belonging to another age. And she totally conquers the extremely difficult and ornate Baroque literature. Fascinating listening.
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Go to Amazon.com to see all 4 reviews
4.8 out of 5 stars
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