Serpent & Fire: Arias for Dido & Cleopatra Anna Prohaska

• Henry Purcell (1659-1695): Dido and Aeneas, Z. 626:
• 1Overture01:47
• 2Aria -Ah! Belinda, I Am Press'd with Torment-04:42
• Christoph Graupner (1683-1760): Dido, Konigin von Karthago:
• 3Aria -Holdestes Lispeln der spielenden Fluthen-02:05
• Antonio Sartorio (1630-1680): Giulio Cesare in Egitto:
• 4Aria -Non voglio amar-02:31
• Matthew Locke (c.1621-1677): The Tempest, the Second Musick
• 5Lilk00:50
• 6Curtain Tune05:08
• Daniele da Castrovillari (C.1613-1678): La Cleopatra
• 7Aria -A dio regni, a dio scettri-06:08
• Antonio Sartorio (1630-1680): Giulio Cesare in Egitto
• 8Aria -Quando voglio-02:32
• Locke: The Tempest, the First Musick
• 9Galliard01:34
• Purcell: The Fairy Queen, Z. 629
• 10Chaconne -Dance for the Chinese Man and Woman-02:39
• Christoph Graupner (1683-1760): Dido, Konigin von Karthago
• 11Recitativo accompagnato -Der Himmel...-01:22
• 12Aria -Infido cupido-02:12
• 13Aria -Agitato da tempeste-02:31
• Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759): Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17, Act II
• 14Recitativo accompagnato -Che sento? O dio!-01:07
• 15Aria -Se pieta di me non senti-07:19
• Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783): Didone abbandonata
• 16Aria -Gia si desta la tempesta-04:00
• Dario Castello (1st Half of 17th Century): Sonate concertate in stil moderno, libro secondo
• 17Sonata decimaquinta a quattro04:51
• Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676): Didone, Act II Scene 2
• 18Recitativo & Aria -Re de'Getuli altero-03:19
• Hasse: Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra
• 19Aria -Morte col fiero aspetto-04:04
• Luigi Rossi (c.1597-1653): Passacaille del seigneur Louigi
• 20Passacaille del seigneur Louigi02:50
• Purcel: Dido and Aeneas, Z. 626, Act II
• 21Aria -Oft She Visits This Lone Mountain-01:49
• Dido and Aeneas, Z. 626, Act III
• 22Thy Hand, Belinda...When I Am Laid in Earth04:37
• Total Runtime01:09:57

Info for Serpent & Fire: Arias for Dido & Cleopatra

The German soprano Anna Prohaska joins Alpha Classics for several recording projects. Her first recital brings together two superb African queens - Dido & Cleopatra - and follows them all over Europe during the first century of opera, from the 1640s to 1740. A firework display of arias, virtuosic and tragic by turns, written by the leading personalities of Baroque music (Cavalli, Handel, Purcell, Hasse) and composers still awaiting rediscovery such as Sartorio, Graupner and the Venetian Castrovillari. For this programme built like a tragedy around the queens of Egypt and Carthage, whom she interprets with the passion and fervour that have made her reputation, Anna Prohaska is accompanied by one of today's finest Baroque ensembles, Il Giardino Armonico; under the inspired guidance of their director Giovanni Antonini (who is also a dazzling recorder soloist in some of the arias), they keep us on the edge of our seats from start to finish. A top star in Germany, Anna Prohaska also sings on the world's leading operatic stages, from La Scala to Convent Garden by way of Aix en Provence and Salzburg.

Anna Prohaska, Soprano
Il Giardino Armonico
Giovanni Antonini, Dirigent

Anna Prohaska
made her debuts at the Komische Oper at the age of 17, the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin at 23 and the Berliner Philharmoniker at 24. Awards include the Echo Klassik, the Daphne Preis and the Schneider-Schott-Preis. Anna is currently a “Junge Wilde” artist at the Konzerthaus in Dortmund.

At the Salzburg Festival her appearances have included Zerlina and Despina, and concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Wiener Philharmoniker. For the Bayerische Staatsoper she has sung Blonde and Inanna (Babylon), and for the Teatro alla Scala Milan she has sung Zerlina, a role she repeated for the company’s tour to the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. For the Theater an der Wien she has sung Marzelline (Fidelio) and Anne Trulove, and for the Royal Opera House in London Constance (Dialogues des carmélites)

She is a member of the ensemble of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin where her roles have included Pamina, Anne Trulove, Susanna, Sophie, Blonde, Zerlina, Despina, Poppea (Handel’s Agrippina), Oscar, and Frasquita with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Philippe Jordan, Ingo Metzmacher and René Jacobs.

As both a modern and early music specialist Anna’s wide-ranging repertoire includes Jörg Widmann’s Babylon, composed for her and premiered at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Wolfgang Rihm’s Samothrake, dedicated to her and premiered with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and Rihm’s Mnemosyne with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Claudio Abbado. On the early music scene, Anna performs regularly with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Academy of Ancient Music, and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

Appearances on the concert platform include the Wiener Philharmoniker (Boulez), the Berliner Philharmoniker (Rattle, Harding and Abbado), the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Jansons, Harding and Labadie), the London Symphony Orchestra (Rattle), Lucerne Festival Orchestra (Abbado), Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (Abbado), Los Angeles Philharmonic (Dudamel) and the Boston Symphony (von Dohnanyi). In recital she appears in Schwarzenberg, Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Berlin, Vienna, London and Amsterdam, where her pianists include Eric Schneider, Maurizio Pollini and Daniel Barenboim.

Recordings include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Bernarda Fink for Harmonia Mundi, and two DVD releases for Accentus Music: Berg’s Lulu Suite with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and Claudio Abbado; and Mozart’s Requiem with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Claudio Abbado. Her first solo album, Sirène, was released in 2011 on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Her second album, The Enchanted Forest, re-launched the Archiv label and Anna toured the programme in London, Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin, Essen and Munich.

Anna’s most recent recording, released in June 2014 by Deutsche Grammophon, is entitled Behind the Lines. This recital programme marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War and focuses on the people involved in the Great War and their lives. The programme was premiered by the Radialsystem Berlin and in the anniversary year tours London, Berlin, Vienna, Dortmund, Cologne and Munich, and the Edinburgh and Salzburg festivals.

Booklet for Serpent & Fire: Arias for Dido & Cleopatra