The year after I’d seen the Hytner Xerxes at ENO (which would mean ’88, so I guess my fifteenth) I was on a bit of a Handel kick, so I bought what was at that time the only available recording of Alessandro. Some of the singing was… there… but the singer playing Lisaura managed to bring a real beauty of tone and depth of feeling to the HIP style of the time. I became a bit of an Isabelle Poulenard completist, and this Gluck aria shows her off at her best.
More people should listen to Isabelle Poulenard
My parents- heroes that they were- used to drive me to Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus (RIP, to both the store and while we’re here, to my parents) after dinner on my birthday, to take advantage of the fact that it was open until midnight.
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Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
