MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Anne Sofie von Otter - Opera Arias

"For the sake of both vocal and family well-being, Anne Sofie von Otter has always followed the wise course of self-rationing in opera. This disc, an entirely personal selection of arias from the Viennese Classical period, means all the more to her including, as it does, arias sung by dramatic and passionate women 'most of whom', she admits in the accompanying notes, 'I have never performed on stage and, alas, probably never will'. They include La clemenza di Tito's Vitellia, whom she has irresistibly observed in her own role as Sesto: here she at last voices her guilt at implicating Sesto in her crime of passion, and expresses that unique fusion of sadness and desperation of 'Non più di fiori' in the eloquent company of Colin Lawson's basset horn, followed by Gluck's Alceste, again keenly observed by von Otter in a comprimario role. Gluck's Orfeo is familiar to her at first hand, and here The English Concert's introduction to the recitative preceding 'Che farò' creates exquisitely the 'nuova serena luce' of the Elysian fields against which her grief is the darker, the more plangent. The Mozart arias evoke memorable stage and concert performances by von Otter: a Cherubino whose phrasing combines with that of the wind soloists to create the warm breath of burgeoning sensuality in 'Voi che sapete'; a Cecilio (Lucio Silla) whose coloratura captures the thrilled anticipation of that 'tenero momento'; and a moustachioed Ramiro (La finta giardiniera) who pays ecstatic cantabile tribute to the power of love." Gramophone