This disc offers highlights from the complete 1986 Capriccio recording of Hasse's 1731 opera Cleofide featuring William Christie leading Cappella Coloniensis. It's an entirely respectable performance, but it's characterized more by precision and propriety than by passionate involvement. The orchestra's crisp playing and Christie's stately tempos are musically correct, but the result sounds more like a fastidious reconstruction of a curious artifact than the hot-blooded drama that the libretto suggests, and which may in fact ...
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This disc offers highlights from the complete 1986 Capriccio recording of Hasse's 1731 opera Cleofide featuring William Christie leading Cappella Coloniensis. It's an entirely respectable performance, but it's characterized more by precision and propriety than by passionate involvement. The orchestra's crisp playing and Christie's stately tempos are musically correct, but the result sounds more like a fastidious reconstruction of a curious artifact than the hot-blooded drama that the libretto suggests, and which may in fact be present in the music, if it were given a less reserved reading. The vocalists each sing expressively and each solo is carefully shaped, but there is little sense of dramatic urgency. In general, the quality of the soloists is less impressive than the level of those of the early twenty-first century, who frequently bring truly spectacular voices and a sense of real dramatic understanding to Baroque opera. Emma Kirkby is the most persuasive in the title role; although her soprano...
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Add this copy of Cleofide to cart. $20.99, like new condition, Sold by Streetlight_Records rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Santa Cruz, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Phoenix Edition.
![Johann Adolf Hasse: Cleofide [Scenes and Arias] - Agnès Mellon (soprano); David Cordier (alto); Derek Lee Ragin (alto); Dominique Visse (alto); Emma Kirkby (soprano);...](https://www4.alibris-static.com/johann-adolf-hasse-cleofide-scenes-and-arias/cover/m72452jnz9y_l.jpg)
![Johann Adolf Hasse: Cleofide [Scenes and Arias]](https://www2.alibris-static.com/johann-adolf-hasse-cleofide-scenes-and-arias/cover/m72452jnz9y.jpg)
