Some Strange Felicity
Ensemble Sospiri Ardenti:
Julie Comparini, mezzo-soprano
Ellen Delahanty, soprano and recorder
Jurgen Debruyn, lute and archlute
Geert Van Gele, recorder and harpsichord
Ensemble Sospiri Ardenti's most popular concert program is now available on CD! Some Strange Felicity presents musical scenes from two of Shakespeare's best-loved plays on historical instruments and with spoken texts. The CD includes selections from the 1674 adaptation of The Tempest with music by Matthew Locke, Henry Purcell and others, as well as Elizabethan settings of songs and instrumental music from Twelfth Night by Thomas Morley, John Dowland, Orlando Gibbons and their contemporaries. The use of text passages from the original theater versions allows the music to be experienced in context and lends dramatic flair.
You can order your CD directly from me for € 15,00 plus postage: € 2,50 within Germany, € 4,50 international. Just click the payment button below. Paypal will automatically convert currencies if you are ordering from a non-Euro country. Thank you for supporting me, Sospiri Ardenti and independent record companies!
Reviews of Sospiri Ardenti's concert version of the program:
"[Sospiri Ardenti's] sensitive, precise playing brings out the delicacy, even vulnerability of the music as they immerse themselves in early music's emotional world... Everything they play takes on a tender and heartfelt quality... Julie Comparini sings with a bright, pure mezzo voice which complements Ellen Delahanty's wonderfully clear soprano. (…) The audience sat in rapt attention and congratulated the ensemble with heartfelt applause.“ — Opernnetz.de
"Julie Comparini's unpretentious mezzo-soprano was especially well-suited for the songs and airs with their depth of feeling and expression of the sorrows and joys of love." — Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Mezzo-soprano Julie Comparini and soprano Ellen Delahanty sang emotionally moving arias to the lute strains of their colleague..." — De Beiaard
"The ensemble presented two excellent singers, Ellen Delahanty and Julie Comparini... with much presence, style and taste..." — La Semaine (Brussels)
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