The German soprano Anna Prohaska joins Alpha Classics for several recording projects. Her first recital brings together two superb African queens – Dido and 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 Covent Garden by way of Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg.

• Castello, D: Sonata Decimaquinta à 4 libro 2
• Castrovillari: A Dio Regni, A Dio scettri (from La Cleopatra)
• Castrovillari: La Cleopatra
• Cavalli: La Didone
• Cavalli: Re de' Getuli altero (from Didone)
• Graupner: Der Himmel...Infido Cupido (from Dido, Königin von Karthago)
• Graupner: Dido, Königin von Carthago
• Graupner: Holdestes Lispeln der spielenden Fluthen (from Dido, Königin von Karthago)
• Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto
• Handel: Se pietà di me non senti (from Giulio Cesare)
• Hasse, J A: Didone Abbandonata
• Hasse, J A: Già si desta la tempesta (from Didone Abbandonata)
• Hasse, J A: Marc’ Antonio e Cleopatra
• Hasse, J A: Morte, col fiero aspetto (from Antonio e cleopatra)
• Locke: Curtain Tune from The Tempest
• Locke: The Tempest
• Purcell: Ah! Belinda, I am press'd with torment (from Dido & Aeneas)
• Purcell: Dance for the Chinese Man & Woman (from The Fairy Queen, Z628)
• Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
• Purcell: Oft she visits (from Dido and Aeneas)
• Purcell: The Fairy Queen, Z629
• Purcell: Thy hand, Belinda … When I am laid in earth (from Dido & Aeneas)
• Rossi, Luigi: Passacaille del sign[or]Louigi
• Sartorio: Giulio Cesare in Egitto
• Sartorio: Non voglio amar (from Giulio Cesare in Egitto)
• Sartorio: Quando voglio (from Giulio Cesare in Egitto)