The name of soprano Anna Prohaska may sound familiar to those who grew up on the budget-line classical albums sold in college bookstores and the like; her grandfather Felix Prohaska was a longtime Viennese opera conductor whose Bach recordings on Vanguard were staples of many collections. She has a rather metallic voice that she only rarely allows to bloom into vibrato, suiting her well to Baroque repertory and also to music of the 20th century. Here she takes on antiquity's two legendary African queens, Cleopatra of Egypt ...
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The name of soprano Anna Prohaska may sound familiar to those who grew up on the budget-line classical albums sold in college bookstores and the like; her grandfather Felix Prohaska was a longtime Viennese opera conductor whose Bach recordings on Vanguard were staples of many collections. She has a rather metallic voice that she only rarely allows to bloom into vibrato, suiting her well to Baroque repertory and also to music of the 20th century. Here she takes on antiquity's two legendary African queens, Cleopatra of Egypt and Dido of Carthage. The program, as usual with this artist, is innovative and compelling. The listener may have been aware that both these women fascinated Baroque libretto writers, but this album offers new insights as to the extent, with little-known but entirely satisfactory arias by Christoph Graupner, Antonio Sartorio, Daniele da Castrovillari, and Johann Adolf Hasse alongside those by Handel and Purcell. Purcell's Dido and Aeneas frames the program, but some of these arias...
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