Description:
The arias on this record display to perfection Ruth Ann Swenson's most striking gifts: a pure, flawlessly produced bel canto voice that caresses the ear (as in her previous recital album, Endless Pleasure) with a mellifluous, silken sound, and an effortless, impeccable coloratura technique with a radiant top all the way up to E-flat. With meticulous care for every detail, trills, runs, ornaments, and cadenzas all simply come flowing out with natural ease and unhurried poise. Perhaps this very perfection induces a certain vocal and emotional blandness, especially since Swenson seems temperamentally most comfortable in calm
The arias on this record display to perfection Ruth Ann Swenson's most striking gifts: a pure, flawlessly produced bel canto voice that caresses the ear (as in her previous recital album, Endless Pleasure) with a mellifluous, silken sound, and an effortless, impeccable coloratura technique with a radiant top all the way up to E-flat. With meticulous care for every detail, trills, runs, ornaments, and cadenzas all simply come flowing out with natural ease and unhurried poise. Perhaps this very perfection induces a certain vocal and emotional blandness, especially since Swenson seems temperamentally most comfortable in calm, lyrical music, a tendency underlined by the predominance of slow arias. However, since nearly all of them belong to tragic operatic heroines, the singing often rises to considerable intensity and becomes warm, affecting, and very moving. Some highlights are the otherworldly, mournful dreaminess of the lament from Bellini's La Sonnambula, Mimi's innocent simplicity in Puccini's La Bohème, and the deeply inward, anguished prayer from Verdi's Otello. The orchestra is wonderful throughout, with some outstanding horn, harp, and violin solos; the offstage tenor part in Verdi's La Traviata is vividly taken by a solo cello. --Edith Eisler
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Manufacturer: EMI Classics
Release date: 11 January 2000
EAN: 0724355676429 UPC: 724355676429
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