Ruth Leon recommends… Sabine Devieilhe sings Handel’s Giulio Cesare
Ruth Leon recommendsSabine Devieilhe sings Handel’s Giulio Cesare
The French soprano Sabine Devieilhe is quite a ‘find’. Wife and muse to the conductor Raphaël Pichon, she is known for her often startling interpretations of baroque and 19th Century opera but she is attracting attention recently for her Handel recordings.
Here she joins with Pichon’s Pygmalion ensemble for a poignant and personal recording, made under the tense conditions of the pandemic, of “Se pietà di me non senti”, an aria from Act 2 of Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto.
”We really wanted to convey the idea of human emotion that at times goes beyond our understanding, and which creates music of extraordinary drama. That kind of emotion can be found in secular music, like opera, as much as in sacred music. I wanted to demonstrate that through the music of both Bach and Handel.”
Beautiful!
An extraordinary singer in all the repertoire I’ve heard on both CD and YouTube – and there’s a substantial amount – with a command of technique and interpretation which sets her clearly amongst the very greatest of sopranos in decades. Her YouTube rendition of Belleza in Handel’s ‘Il trionfo del disenganno e del tempo’ also demonstrates her capacity to act convincingly. Raphael Pichon and his Ensemble Pygmalion are superb, sympathetic interpreters of the baroque repertoire. While informed critics of both her and Raphael Pichon’s Ensemble Pygmalion appreciate their outstanding qualities they do not appear to attract invitations to perform in the UK to anything like the extent they deserve; a fate shared by other great French baroque performers like Philippe Jaroussky and Lea Desandre.
One of my all-time favourite sopranos in 18th century repertoire. With Véronique Gens, and Sandrine Piau, the French seem to be mopping up the soprano field.
Greatly enjoyed her Lakme, currently available via Arte TV