Handel: Floridante, Il Complesso Barocco / Alan Curtis, DG Archiv Produktion
All six singers are simply splendid. If I pick out one in particular, it is only because DiDonato delivers another one of her knockout portrayals,
commanding every vocal nuance while applying extraordinary dramatic feeling
at every point – one can almost close one’s eyes and see her acting!
American Record Guide, July/Aug 2007
The exception is mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who gives... a lesson in tonal purity, emotional directness and bravura technique.
San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 2007
American mezzo Joyce DiDonato is the chief reason for adding this rarity to your collection of Handel operas. Fine as the other soloists are, as, indeed,
is the playing of Alan Curtis's sleek ensemble, DiDonato is outstanding as Elmira, lover of Floridante, Prince of Thrace.
The Observer, April 15, 2007
What Curtis' sage, shapely and astutely dramatic performance gets right is Handel's deep absorption in the character of Elmira...
(he) is aided by the psychologically penetrating performance of Joyce DiDonato, among the best Handel singers of our day. She's got the chops to
sing "Oh what a surprise" (in Italian, of course) when Oronte gives her the dual news – and make it count. Throughout the long, demanding role, she never,
as the Brits say, puts a foot wrong, and her lustrous mezzo doesn't miss a single dramatic nuance. There are echoes of Callas in the aria that follows, "Barbaro, t'odio a morte"
("I hate you to death"), and she sings a transfixing scene that upends the Baroque sleep aria convention by making it an insomnia-accompanied recitative.
Bay Area Reporter, April, 2007
Joyce DiDonato is outstanding as Elmira, flame-toned in her rejection of the tyrant Oronte's grotesque advances, sensuous in her love for Floridante.
The Telegraph, April, 2007
This is the one to have, however, above all for DiDonato's fabulous Elmira.
The Times, April, 2007
Best of the Year!
CLASS ACT: Joyce DiDonato released two splendid recitals, The Deepest Desire (Eloquentia) and a lovely Venetian-themed program (Wigmore Hall Live),
as well as recording a standard-setting performance of the title role in Handel's Radamisto (Virgin).
Opera News, January 2007
¡Pasión!, Eloquentia
DiDonato relishes the richness of her voice and spins some gorgeous, purely vocal moments in Falla's Seven Popular Spanish Songs.
She is aided by deliciously playful accompaniment from Julius Drake. [They] achieve a stylish intensity in Turina's Poema en forma de canciones.
DiDonato's [encore] is a Rossini Canzonetta spagnuola, full of sensuous teasing and building up to an accelerating crescendo in which –
and this is the highest praise I can bestow – she did make me think of Supervia.
Gramophone, October, 2007
Bright light
With ¡Pasión! (Eloquentia), DiDonato shines a bright light on a dark corner of the song repertory, the
turn-of-the-last-century Spanish song, with the kaleidoscopically colored musical personality she brings to everything she sings.
Enchantment informs her performance of that languid, sensual love song, [Del cabello mas sutil] sung with the full richness of her
beguiling instrument. Still more astonishing is the huge expressive range of the eight-song set, Canciones clasicas espanolas.
DiDonato responds to the material like a born Spaniard, with color, snap, and a suave feeling for rhythm made even more compelling by her
superb sense of line and dynamic shading.
Three other composers of the 30 songs here – Enrique Granados, Joaquin Turina, and Manuel de Falla – are even more familiar, but the
likelihood of anyone's having heard their delectable songs in recital is scandalously slight. Even so, the revelation is the five-song set,
Cince canciones negras, by the little-known Xavier Monstsalvatge (1912-2002). The material is arresting and, nominally exploring the
color black, uses all its hues across a daunting range of melodies, harmonies and rhythms, to all of which DiDonato and her superb accompanist
Julius Drake respond like dancers in lock-step.
Her encore, Rossini's dizzyingly accelerating "Canzonetta spangnola," sung to enchant, not impress, is the perfect fillip.
Bay Area Reporter, April, 2007
Following up her triumphant debut disc of Amercian art songs, last year's The Deepest Desire, brilliant lyric mezzo Joyce DiDonato confronts the riches of 20th-century Spanish canciones.
Spanish songs have sometimes served as a refuge for nonnative mezzos who have blown their resources into blowsy edginess, but that's far from the case here. DiDonato's pellucid timbre
always sounds youthful and fresh – even when suggesting the bitter coffee tinge that some of the chestier numbers call for – and there are few healthier, more accomplished techniques
in the world today than hers. DiDonato's hauntingly emotional tone color is wielded with pinpoint sensitivity to words and dynamics. An excellent intro to DiDonato's art and this uniquely
fascinating song repertory.
Time Out, NY, February, 2007
Here, I suspect, is the disc that admirers of the young American mezzo have all been waiting for. This is a gorgeous voice,
and she has evidently listened to both de los Angeles and Berganza without falling into the trap of imitation.
Her warm, colourful mezzo is capable of the utmost delicacy in Falla’s lullaby (Nana, from Seven Popular Spanish Songs),
but there is authentic-sounding Iberian fire in her singing of the dancelike rhythms of the more extrovert numbers by Obradors,
Turina and Granados. She exploits her dark-tinted chest voice in cries of anguish on the latter’s Maja dolorosa triptych.
It’s hard to think of a better modern introduction to Spanish song..
The Times, January 28, 2007
Joyce DiDonato a donc rassemblé ici des airs fort connus et souvent enregistrés, mail qui le lui reprochera tant elle y fait merveille?
Sa voix semble avoir été créée pour ces mélodies dont elle détaille les subtilités et les nuances avec un extrème talent, certaines couleurs
ne sont pas loin d’évoquer celles de Victoria de Los Angeles. Plutôt que d’en donner une lecture musclée, ainsi que certaines de ses consoerus
aiment à le faire (graves sonores et envolées exaltées), elle en dégage plutôt la face intimiste et mélodieuse, qui se heurte d’ailleurs
à l’aspect “olé, olé” de la couverture. Très bien accompagnée par un pianiste discret, cette jeune star que l’on connait surtout commer
interprète de Rossini ou de Handel, se révèle ici sous un nouveau jour.
Le Monde de la Musique, Décembre 2006
Wigmore Hall Live, BBC WHL CD 0009
Everybody's talking about mezzo Joyce DiDonato these days. This star product of Houston Opera Studio has been conquering
opera houses around the world. If you wonder what all the fuss is about, listen to this live recital from London
earlier this year. The voice has a gorgeous silvery sheen in its higher registers, seamlessly changing to molten gold as
it descends. The sumptuous Hahn ditties are beguiling, and the Rossini numbers give Ms. DiDonato a chance to show off
her coloratura specialty. Arias by Handel and Rossini provide the encores, and dazzling is the word.
BOTTOM LINE: A real star, this one.
The Dallas Morning News, September 2006
The highlights of the American mezzo's Venetian trip are Fauré's 'Mandoline' and Hahn's 'La Barcheta', but all the
songs explain why DiDonato has risen so quickly to international stardom. The purity and lightness of her tone are enchanting.
The Sunday Telegraph, June 2006
Recorded live in January this recital is the first indication that the Wigmore's in-house label…has something important to say.
DiDonato radiates not just the serene and sinister side of Venice, but its romantic melancholy, as depicted in six songs by Reynaldo Hahn.
La Regata veneziana showcases the American mezzo's florid brilliance, Fauré's Cinq Mélodies her seductive sense of line.
Financial Times, June 2006
There's plenty of erotic languor in DiDonato's singing, above all in Head's cycle, with its furtive musings about
“our silent coming on”, while the Hahn is delivered with such passion that the audience interrupts at one point
with spontaneous applause.
The Guardian, June 2006
Such force, such lustre! Joyce DiDonato’s mezzo-soprano is very impressive… there's quite enough quiet silky legato and
subtle phrasing to delight lovers of the intimate.
...this American mezzo-soprano is also a dab hand at the song recital: the Wigmore concert captured on CD is a bewitching
musical homage to Venice, spanning the centuries in repertoire but united by DiDonato’s delicious way with words – as
well as her immaculate technique,.
The Times, May 2006
Rossini - Il Barbiere di Siviglia, TDK DVD
In questo Barbiere, ripreso all'Opéra National de Parigi nell'aprile del 2002, troviamo due fuoriclasse: il direttore Bruno
Companella – e il mezzosoprano Joyce DiDonato (Rosina), che riesce a concilire la piú alta scuola belcantistica con la piú
squisita musicalità con una recitazione viva e pertinente.
Musica, Giugno 2006
(Joyce DiDonato’s) singing and acting are the justification for the purchase of this issue… she has already made an impact
at the best addresses and on record having sung Cenerentola at La Scala and was a big hit at Pesaro in 2005.
Ms DiDonato was the star of the new production of Il Barbiere at Covent Garden in December of the same year and I greatly admired her
singing in the recent La Cenerentola from Naxos recorded in November 2004. Her singing has brilliance, richness of tone, a wide variety
of colour allied to vocal flexibility. DiDonato’s trill is a delight whilst her legato cannot be bettered. She is the ideal Rossini diva.
Her rendering of Una voco poco fa (Ch. 15) was the vocal highlight of the evening and the audience justifiably received it with acclaim.
Concentration on that showpiece aria is not to ignore her part in the remainder of the opera. When she is on stage and involved she
brings out the best in her colleagues.
Joyce DiDonato's Dejanira is a human color-chip for the full spectrum of the emotional color green, and she devours the part whole without
spitting out the bones. Her singing is so involved you barely notice how musically immaculate it is. By the time she reaches the climactic
"Where shall I fly?" at the end of Act III, the spitfire flurry of hemidemisemiquavers seems only a natural vehicle for her hallucinatory
outcry, "No rest the guilty find from the pursuing furies of the mind.
Handel's gift for placing the emotional core of a drama at its literal center is brilliantly realized by Bondy. Taking all of Handel's cues,
he has Dejanira and Hercules attempt a futile reconciliation that attempts tenderness and, nearly, sex Ñ only to see the seduction sour.
DiDonato's solo after Hercules' departure, supine and begging for eternal night, is the most devastating moment I've witnessed in a
quarter-century of Handel stagings.
Bel Air's welcome issue must count among the best DVDs ever made of a Handelian production.
Everyone looks terrific. Joyce DiDonato's marvelous Dejanira dominates the proceedings. Her ravishing singing
always dead on pitch and displaying a wealth of natural-sounding graces, decorations, flawless trills and
coloratura runs, complements emotionally astute verbal shading in recits.
But the show belongs to Joyce DiDonato, who masters the title role. The mezzo-soprano seems incapable of singing a
note devoid of specific character, and she has Radamisto's full psychology in sharp focus. Curtis gets too little
credit for giving first exposure to front-rank talent. Diva DiDonato is but the latest.
Bay Area Reporter, Mar. 2006
Editors' Choice
Joyce DiDonato is reason enough for producing the original version of the title role, as her high mezzo-soprano
voice finds no difficulties with the tessitura and provides just the right brilliance, with bite and sinew,
for the male hero. She brings stylish lilt to the spare "Cara Sposa", intimacy and gravity to the dense web of
string writing in the justly famous "Ombra cara di mia sposa." Durastanti was one of Handel's most versatile
singers, appearing in both male and female roles, and many of them – Agrippina, Vitige, Sextus and Tauris –
are right up DiDonato's alley.
Opera News, Mar. 2006
As has consistently been the case with Curtis's recent run of Handel opera recordings, he has chosen a first-rate cast
that, where comparisons are applicable, is nearly always superior to that of McGegan. Joyce DiDonato is a magnificent
Radamisto, singing the role with gleaming tone and a dramatic strength that goes a long way to belying his weaknesses.
Equally at home in the long lines of Caro sposa (act I) and Ombra cara, or the uncomprehending fury of
Vanne, sorella ingrata (act II), DiDonato's is throughout a supremely commanding performance. And for just one of many
examples that provide fresh evidence of the care that Curtis always lavishes on secco recitative, just listen to
DiDonato's dumbfounded reaction when Radamisto hears that his sister will play no part in having her loathsome husband
murdered (act II/8).
With this record of American songs, risen star Joyce DiDonato fulfills all expectations with a lustrous recital.
Given her ability to inhabit the detailed world of song, it is sure to be the first of many. DiDonato's combination of controlled
power and tenderness is, in my experience, unequaled in these pieces, Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson. There are many
glimpses of the intelligence that has made her such an imaginative interpreter and shaper of bel canto coloratura lines.
Jake Heggie's song cycle... fit(s) DiDonato like a glove. DiDonato's pure-toned rendition of the final poem is almost painfully
touching. The mezzo rarely passes out of her accustomed bright tone to a darkened one, but when she does, it gives a tantalizing
taste of what lies ahead in the maturation of this voice.
Opera News, June 2006
As every opera maven knows, she has since become the toast of the international circuit. Her forthcoming appearance here as Octavian in
Der Rosenkavalier in June says much about her range. But, to an extent unprecedented in my experience of such CDs, her debut recital disc,
The Deepest Desire (Eloquentia), reveals the artist, woman, and creative spirit behind the voice. And what a woman, and spirit.
DiDonato gives performances of almost shocking emotional directness.
Although her enormously flexible voice is surpassingly beautiful, her singing isn't always, because sometimes the music asks otherwise,
and she responds fearlessly… There hasn't been a more involvingly beautiful recording by an American singer since Teresa Stratas' Kurt
Weill recordings.
Copland's Dickinson settings may never have been better sung. But it is Heggie's set that caps this unforgettable CD.
[T]hese achingly beautiful songs about the sister's calling – not to mere obedience, but to
"the deepest desire of my heart" ("Justice") – are given new life by a singer who has also sung the role of Sister Helen.
The motto for this CD could be Bernstein's setting of Conrad Aiken's line: "Music I heard with you was more than music."
Joyce DiDonato's debut recital disc proves itself worth the wait on the strength of a single work alone.
Its centrepiece is her spellbinding performance of one of the last century's great works for voice and piano, Copland's 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson.
The Kansas City mezzo's account effortlessly combines absolute technical authority with a golden timbre and a keen musical intelligence.
DiDonato seems completely at one with the poetry ...and receives exemplary support from her accompanist David Zobel, whose perceptive and finely
modulated playing is a joy.
With first-class recorded sound and meticulously produced booklet notes ...this is a disc not just for DiDonato fans but for all who love the
unsurpassable beauty of the human voice.
American opera singers are known to be versatile, but Joyce DiDonato seems to exist in triplicate. She's been the dramatically accomplished
star of the newish Dead Man Walking opera, has a coloratura technique that has established her in baroque opera circles, and is heard here
as a recitalist on her first solo disc. In Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, her singing hits the right emotional temperature, and
enunciation is good.
A young American singer tests out her fine voice in a riveting solo debut
Joyce DiDonato has made some terrific records over the past few years, including a delicious programme of Handel duets Virgin (10/04),
but this is her first solo disc. She is technically well equipped: her voice is bright, firm and even throughout its range –
the top is never shrill and the bottom is powerful but not 'chesty' – and intonation is always spot on. It's her temperament
that sets her apart, however. From the first song, there's an electric charge running through this recital that suggests a live
performance (though it was recorded in a Paris church sans audience.)
DiDonato throws herself into the music head first, vaulting over the high-lying phrases of Bernstein's 'Extinguish my eyes...' with aplomb.
And how varied her singing is. Note the deft transition from fiery abandon in that first song to the unexpected sensuality of the final phrase.
Or the way she lightens her voice to a wisp for the line 'I have forgotten' in the otherwise emotionally heavy What lips my lips have kissed.
Or the dusky gypsy-like tone she employs in A Julia de Burgos.
The programme's centerpiece is Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson. DiDonato occasionally sacrifices textual clarity for lyrical abandon
but her performance has an improvisatory character that makes this undervalued cycle absolutely riveting. Pianist David Zobel deserves credit,
too; his brilliant, sensitive playing is illuminating and exhilariting.
Jake Heggie's Deepest Desire set (based on texts by Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame) pales somewhat in comparison with Copland's
expressive concision, though the former writes effectively for the voice and is a fine melodist. In any case, DiDonato makes the most of the
four songs' dramatic potential. An auspicious debut, indeed!
The American mezzo has devised an enterprising programme for her solo debut. The voice itself, a warm, voluptuous mezzo with easy, exciting top notes,
is an untrammelled joy to listen to, and DiDonato is clearly a thoughtful musician.
Joyce DiDonato is exceptional in the title role, technically staggering and deeply touching in her characterisation.
The Guardian, Oct. 2005
Standing out from the pack, and definitely the reason to buy the set, is the expressive, technically assured mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato,
whose Angelina is a person of substance, a girl so spirited that she verges on the subversive. Her authority is palpable at the entrance
to Ramiro’s palace as she sings, “Let him who would have a wife offer me respect, love and kindness!” Spanning a range of two and a half
octaves, Donato uses coloratura as an expressive tool, relying on her stupendous control of messa di voce and completely perfect trills
to create a character of sensitivity and true nobility.
Opera News
Although the whole performance is top-notch, the main reason for owning this Cenerentola is the warm, delightfully human, and stunningly
sung Cinderella of Joyce DiDonato. There is no paucity of fine, recorded Cenerentolas (Bartoli, Larmore, Baltsa), but DiDonato, an
under-recorded American mezzo, catches precisely the right tone of vulnerability and goodness in the character while never stinting on
the coloratura fireworks we expect from the role. She's always in character – modest and kind; it's a beautiful, understated portrayal.
Le beau péruvien partage les honneurs avec la superbe Angelina de Joyce Di Donato, authentique contraltino que l'Amérique semble tarder à
découvrir. Bien que de puissance modérée, la voix est belle et homogène, le médium est gorgé de couleurs, la vocalisation
est délicate mais souveraine: a-t-on chanté le rondo final aussi vite - et aussi bien - depuis Bartoli? Joyce Di Donato
chante Rossini comme peu de ses collègues, elle ne sacrifie jamais un très beau cantabile aux exigences virtuoses de l'écriture
(pourtant relevées avec un rare brio), tout en demeurant surprenante d'invention dans les variations (surtout vers l'aigu), et
sans effort apparent. Au surplus, la chanteuse se double d'une interprète intelligente, actrice sensible, touchante en Cendrillon
et impérative en princesse nouvellement consacrée.
La Scena Musicale
Amor e Gelosia, CD of Handel Duets, EMI
All are most beautifully sung by Patrizia Ciofi and Joyce DiDonato, who has just the right firmness and
focus for a castrato role (as the mezzo voices almost always are here); both phrase beautifully, and
articulate and express the words so clearly and so tellingly. They ornament the da capo sections in a
natural and tasteful fashion. The accompaniments, done by a chamber group under Alan Curtis with much
refined timing of detail, add to the pleasures of this truly delectable CD. Indeed, listening to it is
a bit like eating a meal of delicious puddings.
Gramophone, July 2004
The term ‘instant classic’ is overused and oxymoronic, but certain records proclaim their
durability at first hearing. A new CD of duets from Handel operas, ‘Amor e Gelosia’
(‘Love and Jealousy’), on Virgin, is one.
Fleshing out the drama in the [some] selections may require imagination. But listeners enthralled by
the exquisite blending of Ms. Ciofi’s and Ms. DiDonato’s complementary voices won’t mind.
Music is seldom more effervescent than in ‘Scherzando sul tuo volto’ (‘Gazing with
heedless wonder on thy face’) from ‘Rinaldo’ or seldom more wrenching than
in ‘Io t’abbraccio’ (‘With this embrace’) from ‘Rodelinda.’
And the anguished parting of two lovers from ‘Teseo’ that ends the record is irresistible.
Ms. DiDonato’s sound is no less attractive, her timbre like topsoil, rich and earthy. And her
dramatic skills are equally compelling.
The New York Times, July 11, 2004
The Italian soprano and the American mezzo are two of the outstanding singers of a rising generation,
prized primarily for their prowess in later music. On this evidence, they belong to the elite of current
Handel singers, too: their voices intertwine rapturously, like mating snakes, in the love duets from
Rodelinda, Orlando, and, above all, the beautiful Per le porte del tormento, from Sosarme, one of Handel’s
greatest inspirations in the genre.
With her keen edged but never shrill soprano, Ciofi blends surprisingly well with DiDonato’s plusher mezzo,
and their stylistic instincts are immaculate. No Handelian will want to miss this superlative singing,
and anyone yet to be hooked by this gorgeous music will be bowled over.
The Sunday Times, July 4, 2004
Benvenuto Cellini, Hector Berlioz
Mezzo Joyce DiDonato sings Ascanio with an enthusiasm that ideally characterizes Cellini’s apprentice:
she nearly dominates every scene she’s in.
However you feel about Vivaldi, sacred vocal music, Latin, or mezzos – you will be impressed, even thrilled by
DiDonato’s singing, her complete technical and stylistic command, her energy, sure intonation, and her winning
ability to enliven and inhabit and project every virtuosic feature of one of Vivaldi’s most engaging vocal creations.
