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.

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