BaL 20.09.14 - Handel: Orlando

[Pulcinella]

I bought Hogwood’s CD but much to my disappointment, there was no libretto.

Try this:

http://www.independentopera.com/productions/orlando_2008.pdf

[doversoul1]

Try this:

http://www.independentopera.com/prod...lando_2008.pdf

Thank you for the link. I found it too but this production seems to be quite a bit shortened, unless I didn’t follow it carefully enough when I watched the Jacobs’s production. Nevertheless, it was/is very useful.

[doversoul1]

Listen Before…

It’s 9.02 am on Saturday morning and I am listening to this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026zg9q

Building a Library: Handel: Orlando
Duration: 56:04
Anna Picard compares recordings of Handel’s opera Orlando and makes a recommendation

Available since: Yesterday

What's going on?

[aeolium]

Probably a podcast put up too early, ds. I'm listening to CD Review live where the Orlando BaL is just starting.

[Nick Armstrong]

Not many recordings of this work? Is this enough?

[doversoul1]

10.15 am
Well, it is good to hear this work in different performances but so far, this is a sort of ‘analytical listening’ of the work. Where is the comparison of the performances other than the reviewer’s odd verbal descriptions? And so far, no James Bowman, no Emma Kirkby!! I find this a very frustrating BaL.

[DracoM]

Tried to get interested. Sorry, but Anna Picard's voice, a relentlessly un-radio voice, made the opera as interesting as a shopping list.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tried to get interested. Sorry, but Anna Picard's voice, a relentlessly un-radio voice, made the opera as interesting as a shopping list.

A bit too detached, perhaps? I dunno - makes a pleasant change from the gushing enthusiasm that seems to be the "house style". She picked my own favoured recording and for the same reasons that I would've given, whilst also saying that many others were equally fine in their own way - which is also how I felt.


Obviously a woman of great discernment and intelligence!

[MickyD]

I had to snigger when she said that the Jacobs recording was the only one which made her laugh...because like DracoM, her voice sounded so expressionless to me that I couldn't imagine her laughing at all.

I already have the Hogwood, but I must admit, I rather liked the sound of that new one from Pacific Baroque - and it is dirt cheap on Amazon at present.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Tried to get interested. Sorry, but Anna Picard's voice, a relentlessly un-radio voice, made the opera as interesting as a shopping list.

But some of what she said WAS interesting. Would we really want one of the current "Radio 3 Favourites" to present a BaL?

[jean]

It's not only precentrices who are castigated for their vocal delivery...

[Nick Armstrong]

I already have the Hogwood, but I must admit, I rather liked the sound of that new one from Pacific Baroque - and it is dirt cheap on Amazon at present.

Not as dirty cheap as the Hogwood which seems to have been reissued on 2 (rather than the 3 L'Oiseau Lyre) discs on Australian Eloquence, and is available with change from 11 quid:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Australian%2BEloquence/ELQ4808813

I didn't mind this BAL, the reviewer wasn't annoying and there were plenty of extracts which allowed one to make one's own mind up... and it ran almost the full hour, which is always welcome. I have a funny feeling that the Jacobs set might pall on repeated listening. I'm happy to stick with the Hogwood.