Anachronistic Hearts

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The French mezzo-soprano Héloïse Mas, Classical Revelation of the ADAMI 2014 and laureate of the latest Queen Elisabeth Voice Competition 2018 is accompanied by a high-powered team comprising the London Handel Orchestra and Laurence Cummings in a magnificent programme of Handel arias. The main thread of these "Anachronistic Hearts" is woman: woman betrayed, abandoned, abused, desired, her emotions passing from joy to doubt, then from sadness to rage, resulting in vengeance, even death... Amongst all the great composers of opera, Handel was without question one of the most convincing with regard to the dramatization of these characters; from Poppea to Dejanira, from Alcina to Ariodante - not forgetting Lucretia broken by rape, these historic representations of women also enable them to be more readily projected into our contemporary epoch. And if one removes the original context, they open up inexhaustible horizons for forming a new framework, the emotional and visual dimensions of which are inspired by the music of Handel. The arias on this release are thus of absolute modernity, and the palette of feelings that Héloïse Mas brings to each of these characters make her first disc as soloist a feast for all listeners.