Album review: Anna Prohaska, Enchanted Forest (Deutsche Grammophon)

Anna Prohaska, Enchanted Forest (Deutsche Grammophon)

Sensitively accompanied by Jonathan Cohen's ensemble Arcangelo, soprano Anna Prohaska here offers a selection of baroque arias based on the supernatural – a mythopoeic world of nymphs, fairies, gods and sorcerors.

But the enchantments are mostly romantic, from the familiar sawing strings and tormented amarosa of “Furie Terribili!” from Handel's Rinaldo to the aching melancholy of Purcell's “The Plaint: O let me weep”, from The Fairy Queen.

Prohaska attacks the songs with elegant daring, employing an unusual swaying delivery for Cavalli's “O Più d'ogni Ricchezza”; but she's most powerfully showcased on Vivaldi's “Alma Oppressa”, a warning against combatting melancholy with love.

Download: Alma Oppressa; O Più d'ogni Ricchezza; The Plaint: O Let Me Weep; Furie Terribili!