PACIFIC BAROQUE/WEIMANN
Handel: Orlando (ATMA Classique) A clutch of wonderful Canadian singers helps bring Orlando, one of George Frideric Handel’s greatest Italian operas, to magnetic life. The Pacific Baroque Orchestra, playing on period instruments, does a fine job, but the real musical meat here is in the singing, which features Allyson McHardy as Medoro, soprano Karina Gauvin as Angelica and bass Nathan Berg as Zoroastro: a reason-bearing magician making his operatic appearance more than a half-century before Mozart’s Magic Flute. The non-Canadians in the vocal cast are equally impressive: British counter-tenor Owen Willetts in the title role of the impassioned knight Orlando and American soprano Amanda Forsythe as Dorinda. Orlando dates from 1734, well into the decline of Italian opera in London. It was Handel’s last big operatic flourish in that language. As such, gorgeous virtuosic arias pile on top of each other in a two-and-a-halfhour garland of rich music. There isn’t a dull moment in this three-CD album recorded after last year’s Vancouver Early Music Festival, although the 24-piece orchestra could sound a bit more colourful at times. John Terauds