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Whistle Stopper - Philippe Jaroussky - Carestini (The Story of a Castrato)
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List Price: $16.98
Our Price: $11.91
Your Save: $ 5.07 ( 30% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Virgin Classics
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0094639524228
Label: Virgin Classics
Manufacturer: Virgin Classics
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Virgin Classics
Release Date: 2007-11-20
Studio: Virgin Classics
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Music Makes the Singer...
Comment: ... but the singer makes the music work! Composers of the 18th Century wrote many of their best opera roles for specific singers whom they knew could make those roles work. Thus we know the identities of singers long dead and obviously never recorded - Senesino, Farinelli, Carestini - and by studying the music written for them, we can get a good idea of how they sang. That's the core method of "historically informed" performance practice, the method that is fundamental to the development of countertenor technique in modern times. Development doesn't occur spontaneously; it's taken decades to achieve the artistry of countertenors today. All great singers are specially endowed by nature, but all great singers reach performance level by studied development. Philippe Jaroussky is not an exception; he's the rule.
Listening to this CD of selections from operas by Handel and Gluck... and Porpora and Hasse.....!! and Gruan, Capelli, and Leo...??? one might easily suppose that every Baroque opera by any forgotten composer must have contained at least one superb aria. I'm willing to grant that supposition, but it was Carestini who sang these arias originally, with his "exquisite taste," and it's Philippe Jaroussky today who makes them so musically convincing with his exquisite technique.
Jaroussky sings in operatic soprano range, but his voice is not a woman's voice. It has timbre that are as masculine as a Russian basso's. There are other "sopranists" performing, but none of them sound as unforced and nuanced as Jaroussky. Let's make it simple: he's the best.
Emmanuelle Haim and Le Concert d'Astree has been establishing a niche for powerful, full-throated performances of early music. Some of their efforts are way overblown, but this time they are note perfect. The historical castrati like Carestini were not wimpy singers; they were acclaimed for their thrilling power of delivery. These selected arias include some powerful orchestral frames - trumpets and horns, resonant reeds, vigorous fiddles - and Jaroussky fills each frame with his vocal intensity. This is a recording that stands to define the art of the male soprano in our times.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Jaroussky-Carestini
Comment: This is a superb disc. Philippe Jaroussky is a wonderfully sensitive artist with equally fine collaboration between the players under the direction of Emmanuelle Haim. I also found the choice of material very interesting.
However, Virgin Classics need a severe black mark for their curious omission of any information about these artists in the ample booklet supplied with the disc. A pretty photograph is really not good enough.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Encounters with beautiful sounds begins with this counter-tenor!!!
Comment: This is the recent happenings in a Chinese website - Handel's "Lascia Ch'io Pianga" from Rinaldo as 'amalgamated' in the soundtrack for the film 'Farinella Il Castrato' as highlighted in a discussion of the best voice and singing. Apart from the soundtrack, performances by Brightman (Sarah), Sissel, Izzy (Isobel Cooper), Gheorghiu (Angela), Scotto (Renata) and Bartoli (Cecilia) plus Hayley Westerner and Charlotte Church were being compared, but none carried the day until Philippe Jaroussky appeared with the aria - when unamimous approval was granted to this 'super belcanto' exponent's performance as being the BEST of the best.
The present disc carried 4 arias from Handel's two operas Alcina and Ariodante, and really, in my view, represent the best of Jaroussky's artistry, though the rest of the ablum are nonetheless superlative performances.
It seems that Jaroussky's voice has a striking power of affectation that carries Handel's music to the greatest effect, and in my view again, much better than Vivaldi's.
The timbre is very sweet and very full, and the singer is fully capable of employing it in a manner that dwells beyond what is purely superficial.
Of course, one should not, at this stage, be tempted to conclude that young Jaroussky has the striking emotional depth of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in Handel. But even so, the voice carries sufficient degree of musicality to convey the composer's meanings and nuances to a high degree of fidelity.
By no means miss this outstanding album from one of today's brightest classical vocal talents.
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Summary: Astonishing Fluency
Comment: If fluency is the ability to speak or write a given language well, then Philippe Jaroussky is fluent in the language of the Baroque opera and proves to be an excellent translator for the rest of us. Here are a dozen tracks of some of the most difficult vocal music ever written brought back to ravishing life by the exciting combination of Jaroussky under the direction of Emmanuelle Haim. The orchestration is creamy; the voice delicate and agile. The composers range from luminaries like Handel to lesser knowns like Graun. This is a must for serious countertenor fanatics and for Baroque connoiseurs. Highly recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pure Magic
Comment: What is there to say....just close your eyes and indulge yourself in this wonderful music.The breathtaking control,tone,colour and pure agility of Phillipe Jaroussky's voice carries you off into another world. If you don't already have this disc and also "Vivald's Heroes" then your collection of Baroque music is lacking. Look forward to his next recording.
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