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REVIEWS
("Maria, Madre di Dio", a few reviews; link to www.early-music.com)
« While Agnès Mellon's voice has developed in recent years it has lost none of its expressive radiance and tonal clarity. Her response to text and music is fervent and her singing, above all in the mezzo register, is rewarding. These qualities greatly enhance the affecting aria 'Sventurati miei sospiri'. This is the expressive high point in Ferrandini's cantata, where Mellon is sensitively accompanied by the upper and middle strings of the Canadian Arion ensemble »
PERFORMANCE * * * * *
SOUND * * * * *
Nicholas Anderson, BBC Music Magazine, April 2004
« Agnès Mellon personifies the tortured mother with overwhelming truth. Her commitment is absolute, she dwells in every word, she embraces, without cheating, the vehemence of all these affects that tears her apart. The fervent singing, although fragile of the one who is and always will be L’Amour, first bloom, but irresistible in Anacréon (Rameau), the Angel in Fauré’s Requiem (« Pie Jesu »), Sangaride (Atys), Creüse (Médée) and Télaïre (Castor et Pollux), has not lost any of her extraordinary emotional strenght. This artist, discreet in the last few years, is coming back as though liberated, more extroverted and endowed with a new self-confidence. (…) The quality of the repertoire and the exceptional performance by Agnès Mellon in Il Pianto di Maria, fullly justifies the purchase of this recording »
Bernard Schreuders, Forum Opera, April 2004
« ... It is the conjunction of sensual beauty and intense sorrow that floors the listener, and elevates the program into a profound meditation on the human condition. But the showstopper is Haendel’s Il Piano di Maria – an astonishingly dramatic cantata for soprano which an incandescent Mellon embraces every nuance of emotion from both music and text. One of the best year’s releases »
Tamara Bernstein, The National Post, Toronto, October 27th 2003
MORE REVIEWS
Majestic Chamber Music
Agnès Mellon is passionate about French repertoire, and her vocal approach to French Music is of dazzling finesse. (In Ernest Chausson’ Chanson perpétuelle), Agnès Mellon, accompanied by the intense and refined pianist Christian Ivaldi and the beautiful cohesion of the Alcan String Quartet, gave a profound, shivering and moving interpretation. She knows how to highlight a text which talk about love, solitude, vanished happiness, appeal for death. And the osmosis between the artists is perfect. The Fauré’s Bonne Chanson conclude a rare and intelligent program. With great sensitivity, Agnès Mellon gave to this lifetime love story, a subtle emotion, an elegant voluptuousness, full of poetry and beauty. (RESMUSICA, July 2003)
Agnès Mellon and the Barcarole Ensemble
« Chills were certainly felt when Agnès Mellon's serene and clear voice was
heard: a wonderful example of emotional expertise ».
LA VOIX DU MERCREDI, January 2000
« Much like Purcell's Celia, Agnès Mellon's voice has a thousand charms, among which there is the supreme musical intelligence which characterizes her ».
LYON CAPITALE, June 1999
MARIA, MADRE DI DIO (informations)
Maria, Madre di Dio
Arion directed by Monica Huggett
with Agnès Mellon, soprano and Matthew White, countertenor
2003, EMCCD 7757
Recorded in February 2003
Features:
VIVALDI, A. : Stabat Mater (for alto)
HANDEL, G.F.. : Ah! Che troppo ineguali (for soprano)
SCARLATTI, A. : Salve Regina (for soprano & alto)
HANDEL/FERRANDINI : Il Pianto di Maria (for soprano)
Link: www.early-music.com |
