6 February 2013 Barbican Hall
Joyce DiDonato: Drama Queens
Cesti ‘Intorno all’idol mio’ from Orontea
Scarlatti Sinfonia from Tolomeo ed Alessandro
Monteverdi ‘Disprezzata regina’ from L’Incoronazione di Poppea
Giacomelli ‘Sposa, son disprezzata’ from Merope
Vivaldi Concerto for violin and strings RV 242 “per Pisendel”
Orlandini ‘Da torbida procella’ from Berenice
Hasse ‘Morte col fiero aspetto’ from Antonio e Cleopatra
Handel ‘Piangerò la sorte mia’ from Giulio Cesare
Handel Passacaglia from Radamisto
Porta ‘Madre diletta, abbracciami’ from Ifigenia in Aulide
Gluck Ballet music from Armide
Handel ‘Brilla nell’alma’ from Alessandro
Il Complesso Barocco
Dmitry Sinkovsky violin/director
Alan Curtis artistic consultant
The Scarlet Frock!
Joyce DiDonato knows her audience. She has rightly assumed a regal status among mezzos. She owns a native intelligence; musical brilliance; dramatic presence; disarming charm and a ferociously fine technique. She has made herself into one of the most accomplished interpreters of the baroque; early classical and bel canto repertoires.
Last week she travelled to London with her friends and regular collaborators the ensemble Il Complesso Barocco who are finest of purveyors of Baroque style. DiDonato sang and they played with intense grace and musical feeling. Two things stood out in this extraordinary musical evening: Vivaldi Concerto for violin and strings “per Pisendel” which saw virtuoso playing by violinist Dmitry Sinkovsky; and Handel ‘Piangerò la sorte mia’ from Giulio Cesare which Joyce Didonato sang with a intensity and beauty I’ve never heard bettered and which brought tears to my eyes.
As well as to the stalwarts of the early eighteenth century Vivaldi and Handel this program introduced me to composers I’ve barely heard of and never heard played before. It was a thrill and an adventure. The musicianship brought the audience to its feet and Joyce DiDonato responded as generously as ever with two exquisite encores.
The Diva dressed to sing these flaming queens: she wore a grand scarlet creation by Vivienne Westwood. It started in a style that evoked Monroe’s red dress in Just two little girls from Littlerock sequence in How to marry a Millionaire; morphed into a scarlet bustle with hints of Scarlet O’Hara in the later part of Gone With the Wind; ending in a grand pannier of sort Madame de Pompadour wore at the court of Louis XV. As I say Madame DiDonato knows her audience better than most Divas.
If you get a chance to hear Joyce DiDonato sing seize it; you will not regret it; she returns to London early in the Summer to sing La Donna del Lago at the Royal Opera House.
Meanwhile I feel no need to carnival this year as last Thursday was a lifetime of Mardi Gras rolled into a single sumptuous pancake of perfection….