TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF HANDEL'S "LA RESURREZIONE (1708), HWV 47 / PARTE PRIMA: 'DISSERRATEVI, O PORTE D'AVERNO'")
GROSS: Sometimes we can overlook something that's right under our noses. Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz tells us a story about a singer he discovered only a few months ago without realizing he already had one of her recordings.
(SOUNDBITE OF HANDEL'S "LA RESURREZIONE (1708), HWV 47 / PARTE PRIMA: 'DISSERRATEVI, O PORTE D'AVERNO'")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing in Italian).
LLOYD SCHWARTZ, BYLINE: Last spring, on a rare visit to Los Angeles, I was especially eager to hear the celebrated acoustics of Walt Disney Hall. I toured the building the year it opened, but I had never heard any music there. During this recent visit, Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic were away on tour. But something called The Handel Project was filling in. It was a series of concerts by the French early music ensemble Le Concert d'Astree, led by the renowned French conductor and harpsichordist Emmanuelle Haim, whom I had never heard in person.
By chance, the one program I was free to get to was a performance of Handel's very first oratorio, "The Triumph Of Time And Disillusionment" (ph), an allegorical story about wisdom eventually winning out over pleasure. I had never heard it in a live performance, so for the very first time, I would not only get to hear the legendary Disney Hall acoustics, but a major work by a composer I love performed by a celebrated ensemble.
Haim is a conductor of impulsive and propulsive energy, who is also sensitive to molding beautiful and expressive phrases. The playing was marvelous, and so were the four vocal soloists. But one of them really stood out - the Russian coloratura soprano Julia Lezhneva, now in her mid-30s, who sang the most famous, really the only famous, aria in this oratorio. It's an aria that became famous because Handel, as he often did, reused the music and some of the words in a later work, in this case, his opera "Rinaldo," which was one of his biggest hits.
"Lascia Ch'io Pianga," "Let Me Weep," is the heroine's gorgeous lament in "Rinaldo." But in the earlier oratorio, it's the figure of Pleasure who advises the heroine, Beauty, to "Pick The Rose But Leave The Thorn," "Lascia La Spina." I was pretty excited by the performance, which was a perfect fit for the breathtakingly live acoustics of Disney Hall. But it was Lezhneva's brilliant coloratura in her fast arias and glowing sensitivity in her slower arias, including the famous one, that really moved me. Here's an excerpt of that great, slow aria, "Lascia La Spina," from Handel's very first oratorio.
(SOUNDBITE OF HANDEL'S "IL TRIONFO DEL TEMPO E DEL DISINGANNO, HWV 46A: 'LASCIA LA SPINA COGLI LA ROSA'")
JULIA LEZHNEVA: (Singing in Italian).
SCHWARTZ: A few months after I got home from LA, I was looking through some review copies of CDs that I had put aside over the years. And in one of those stacks, released a decade ago, was an album of early Handel soprano arias by a singer I didn't know at the time. The surprise was that the soprano on the CD, 10 years younger, was Julia Lezhneva. I could hardly wait to hear the recording.
I think her voice has blossomed over the past decade and that, although the conductor on the recording is excellent, the musical accompaniment wasn't quite as riveting as Emmanuelle Haim's was at Disney Hall. Still, Lezhneva's singing of the role of Pleasure, even 10 years ago, was already exceptional and vividly conveys the demands of Handel's remarkable early oratorio. Let's close with soprano Julia Lezhneva singing what may be the even more beautiful and emotional repeat section of that same unforgettable aria.
(SOUNDBITE OF HANDEL'S "IL TRIONFO DEL TEMPO E DEL DISINGANNO, HWV 46A: 'LASCIA LA SPINA COGLI LA ROSA'")
LEZHNEVA: (Singing in Italian).
GROSS: Lloyd Schwartz is our classical music critic and also the poet laureate of Somerville, Massachusetts. He reviewed a recording of early Handel arias by Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva.
(SOUNDBITE OF HANDEL'S "IL TRIONFO DEL TEMPO E DEL DISINGANNO, HWV 46A: 'LASCIA LA SPINA COGLI LA ROSA'")
GROSS: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, Malala Yousafzai, who became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner at age 17, discusses her new memoir, "Finding My Way." It's about her life as a young woman, navigating friendship, first love and self discovery while living in the global spotlight.
To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our cohost is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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