What a big, bright, beautiful, mature-and-still-youthful voice - packaged
in an album that should be to every Mozart fan's satisfaction.  Besides
a few "standards," here you will find delightful "old and unusual" music:
even if you think you have overplayed "Idomeneo," you'll get arias from
"Lucio Silla," "Zaide," and - ready? - "Ascanio in Alba." After all these
years-in-opera, I never heard a note from that last one.  (1771, a gift for
the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand.)

The singer is Natalie Dessay, the Virgin Classics CD is called "Mozart
Heroines," and the recommendation from here: take a listen. Louis Langree
conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (a group for which I
developed great respect last month at a Simon Rattle Berlioz extravaganza
in Brussels).

 From Virgin Veritas comes another grand release:  Ian Bostridge singing
"Bach Cantatas & Arias" (that the rather generic title, and I thought the
number was 1685-1750, but that's too close to the dates of JS' birth and
death - try 7243-5-45420-2-2 now that I found the magnifying glasses,
grrr!).  One of the most elegant and thoughtful singers in our time,
Bostridge is a natural for Bach, although I have not heard him sing Bach
at any of his live concerts yet.  His voice doesn't quite have that lyric
beauty which made James Taylor's Bach so special 4-5 years ago when Helmuth
Rilling started featuring Taylor, but in every other regard - especially
that of clarity - this is remarkable Bach.

"Ich habe genug" is somehow not quite right as the first track - to get the
right "first impression," start with "Sanfte soll mein Todeskummer" from
the middle of the CD:  chances are you repeat it before going on.  Fabio
Biondi conducts Europa Galante in accompanying Bostridge and in the
performance of three Sinfonias.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
[log in to unmask]