George Frideric Handel - Alcina - "Ah! Ruggiero crudel!.. Ombre pallide" (Joan Sutherland) (1960)

While I'm still on the subject of Joan Sutherland and Handel, I decided to post what seems to me one of Handel's best creations: the title heroine's closing Act Two aria in "Alcina".

As per tradition, the aria opens with a long and very dramatic recitative: first, Alcina laments the loss of Ruggiero, the man she loves, who managed to free himself from the sorceress magic. Then, with almost no orchestral accompaniment, we get a furious call to the spirits. What follows is a very striking passage. The spirits are not coming, which causes Alcina great distress. She calls for her servants, she threatens them, but to no avail: she is greeted by deadly silence; the magic has left the sorceress. A lovely lament follows brilliantly set against the urgent playing of the strings. Alcina continues to call for the spirits almost automatically, she comprehends that no one will come to help her. The B section seems to be almost a plea for help: Alcina is desperate, finding her for the first time truly alone. What is very striking, the music makes us deeply feel the anti-heroine's torment: quite possibly she was just a lonely woman who just wanted love but went too far to get it... Anyway, the aria is beautiful.

It helps greatly that Joan Sutherland manages to make much of it: the singing is tonally varied and wonderfully beautiful (the lament always brings tears to my eyes); what's more, it's a very dramatic reading: the recitative is well-acted, while the aria has a very tearful feeling to it; additional ornaments are rather spare, but the vocal quality overshadows this minor flaw. And, for once, the rather echo-y quality of the recording helps highlight the silence of the spirits: Alcina is truly alone, so alone that her voice returns in an endless echo... In a word: perfect :)! Hope you will enjoy :)!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• baroque
• coloratura
• ABA
• da
• capo
• Joan
• Sutherland
• Alcina
• Handel
• Haendel
• classical

[primohomme]

This aria is amazing! Notice how she music suddenly becomes acapella...it is meant so symbolize how Alcina's magic is abandoning her. Her power was illusion, and once it has been broken by true love, she cannot conjure it back.

[SENAFOREVER]

It's not at all the breathing capacity. It's the technique. She has a perfect tone production technique, a perfect vocal gesture enabling her to sing long phrases effortlessly, like Caballé, Gigli, Plançon, Battistini,Hallstein, Hoch, Lubin, Lili Lehmann, and all the good singers whatever the tessitura or sex. Nowodays singers have a flawed vocal gesture, that's why Legato is disappearing.Even variety singers used to sing that way.(Josephine Baker, Yvette Guilbert, Léo Ferré....)

[tonyduong2011]

Sutherland here renders this Handel aria so magnificently as to demonstrate at once the latter's absolute musical genius and her own undoubted entitlement to the title bestowed upon her by those fortunate to see and hear her of "La Stupenda" !

[Tolin77]

what an opera, what a character !!

[Teonareine]

What beauty ! Thanks.

[MrYankeeTex]

I just like the tempo of Flemming's. Its more exciting. It's not marked Allegro, but I wish it were. This IS spectacular singing. So thread-y. It shows the small spot that her big singing eventually came from. So feminine.

[Medea59]

Leider wurde bei youtube die Version von Simone Kermes entfernt. Wirklich schade, denn sie ist m.E. eine harte Konkurrenz zu Joan Sutherlands Ombre pallide, und liegt bei mir sogar in Führung :-)

Diese hier ist sehr sehr schön, aber rein gesanglich gefällt mir Simone Kermes' Interpretation besser.

[hububvu]

Hi! can anyone tell me why most singers add variations and ornamentation in the repeat of section A but Sutherland doesn't? I personaly prefere it this way, but it seems mandatory to change the melody the second time arownd...

[Hako2004]

Sutherland had one big advantage over most sopranos singing this, and much of the Handel repertory, and that was her phenomenal breath capacity. She was able to sing phrase after phrase on a single breath, as evidenced here.