Tim Ashley 

Anna Prohaksa: Enchanted Forest – review

Soprano Anna Prohaska explores enchanted forests of the Renaissance imagination in a well put together but disappointing programme, writes Tim Ashley
  
  


The enchanted forests of the Renaissance imagination – places of mystery and erotic confusion – haunted Baroque theatre composers, who often looked to earlier literary sources for inspiration. Soprano Anna Prohaska explores the connections in this intelligently programmed recital that doesn't quite fulfil its promise. She's wonderful in 17th-century music, spinning out the lines of a Purcell chaconne and negotiating Cavalli's recitatives-cum-ariosos with impeccable understanding and style. When she turns to Handel and Vivaldi, however, the sensitivity of her singing gives way to a heavyweight athleticism, and the results are altogether less appealing. Arcangelo under Jonathan Cohen are breathtaking throughout.

 

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