Kathleen Battle - Handel: SEMELE, Endless pleasure, New York 1985 скачать в хорошем качестве

Kathleen Battle - Handel: SEMELE, Endless pleasure, New York 1985

THE SONGBIRD: Kathleen Battle was a superstar lyric-coloratura soprano of the 1980s and 1990s. Battle came into prominence just as I started diving into opera, so I was present at the early stages of her career ascent: listening to her Met radio broadcasts when they aired, watching her telecasts in real time, and purchasing her new recordings at Tower Records the week they were released. I was blessed to hear her live in recital three times between 1986 and 1994. I admire 100s of sopranos, but Battle is one of the defining soprano artists of my life. Here she is in an early-career live performance of “Semele” at Carnegie Hall in 1985 with John Nelson conducting. The complete live performance can be found elsewhere on YouTube. The same company was reassembled in 1990 for the landmark complete DGG studio recording. THE MUSIC: Handel's oratorio "Semele" premiered at Covent Garden in London in 1744. It was only performed six times during Handel's life, but regained popularity in the 20th Century and is now regularly performed in concert and as a staged opera. The plot centers around the god Jupiter taking human form for his affair with Semele, a beautiful self-involved mortal. Jupiter's wife Juno discovers this adultery and plots Semele's downfall by cunningly using Semele's own vanity against her. At Juno's persuasion that it will make her immortal, Semele insists that Jupiter reveal his full divine form to her -- he reluctantly agrees and his fiery thunderbolts destroy her. From her ashes arises Jupiter's son Bacchus, god of wine and festivities.