Handel's Last Prima Donna: Giulia Frasi in London
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HANDEL / CIAMPI / ARNE / HAYES / SMITH
Handel's Last Prima Donna: Giulia Frasi in London
Ruby Hughes (soprano) Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Laurence Cummings
[ Chandos Chaconne SACD / Hybrid SACD ]
Release Date: Friday 2 March 2018
This item is currently out of stock. We expect to be able to supply it to you within 2 - 4 weeks from when you place your order.
Excelling in Renaissance and baroque repertoire, the young British soprano Ruby Hughes pays tribute to Handel's last prima donna, the Italian soprano Giulia Frasi.
For her debut recording on Chandos she has chosen a selection of celebrated arias composed for Frasi by Handel, in his late oratorios Susanna, Solomon, Theodora, and Jephtha, and other composers of the era, whose works are now much less familiar, offering several modern premieres.
Performed on period instruments by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Laurence Cummings, and recorded in surround-sound, this programme is unique of its kind.
"Ruby Hughes has a direct, clean, and unaffected soprano voice that, judging from descriptions, probably matches Frasi's quite well. The orchestral work under Cummings is exemplary" American Record Guide
"With her limpid purity of tone, immaculately even coloratura and graceful sense of style, Hughes is in many ways ideal in this repertoire… the OAE provide sensitively coloured accompaniments… The gentle beauty of Hughes's voice, deployed with unfailing taste, can hardly fail to give pleasure, the music - not least the Queen of Sheba's valedictory 'Will the sun forget to streak' - often touches the sublime, while the non-Handel items will come as delightful discoveries to many" Gramophone
Tracks:
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
Susanna: Crystal streams in murmurs flowing
VINCENZO CIAMPI
premiere recording
Emirena: O Dio! Mancar mi sento
Camilla: Là per l'ombrosa sponda
THOMAS AUGUSTINE ARNE
Arbaces: Why is death for ever late
JOHN CHRISTOPHER SMITH
Eve: Oh! do not, Adam, exercise on my thy hatred ... It comes! it comes! it must be death!.
Rebecca: But see, the night with silent pace steals on...O balmy Sleep!
THOMAS AUGUSTINE ARNE
Eltruda: Gracious Heav'n, O hear me!
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
Theodora, HWV 68:
Sinfonia
O thou bright Sun! -.
With Darkness deep as is my Woe
Symphony of soft Musick
But why art thou disquieted
O that I on Wings cou'd rise
PHILIP HAYES
premiere recording
Parthenope: Soon arrives thy fatal hour
HANDEL
The Choice of Hercules, HWV 69: There the Brisk Sparkling Nectar Drain
Jephtha: Ye sacred priests - Farewell, ye limpid springs and floods
Queen of Sheba: Will the Sun forget to streak
