About Alan Curtis

• Biography

About Donna Leon

• Interview

Editorial Reviews

Handel filled many of his operas with magical characters who possess supernatural powers, but even sorceresses suffer the tribulations of love. This splendid CD, called La Maga Abbandonata (The Abandoned Sorceress), collects Handel arias and scenes from such "magic" operas, spotlighting dramatic high points where superhuman women find that true love comes with a high price. The payoff: some of Handel's most gorgeous and deeply felt music. Two magnificent young singers share the limelight here: soprano Simone Kermes and mezzo-soprano Maite Beaumont, singing arias (and one duet) from Rinaldo, Alcina, and Amadigi, accompanied by Handel veteran Alan Curtis and his original instrument band, Il Complesso Barocco. Emotions run to extremes, from the fury of "Desterò, dall'empia dite," which Kermes carries off with lively style and a glowing tone, to the more dominant sentiment of despair, such as in "Pena tiranna," sensitively sung by Beaumont with her darker yet equally lovely voice. Sprightly performances of instrumental sinfonias fill out the disc, and as an added attraction at the end of the CD, Donna Leon, the novelist, Handel aficionado, and close advisor to Curtis, reads a passage from her book Acqua Alta that describes the extraordinary aria "Ombra pallide," which Kermes delivers with dazzling embellishments on an earlier track. The hybrid SACD plays in regular players as well as those equipped to read the super-audio format and sounds fantastic in both. The disc is also encoded with SACD surround sound, giving those with a multi-channel SACD player plugged into a surround system all the Handel they can handle. EJ Johnson, Barnes & Noble

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