Joyce DiDonato: Drama Queens

"There are singers who are secure in technique but cautious in expression, there are singers who deliver passion but damage the ears, and then there is Joyce DiDonato, who consistently finds the golden mean. The beloved Kansan mezzo is touring with a new Baroque-aria program called 'Drama Queens,' which she recorded for the Virgin Classics label and is bringing to Carnegie Hall on Nov. 18. The giggly title threatens kitsch, but the album, created in collaboration with the scholarly conductor Alan Curtis, is a meaty survey of queenly monologues both famous and obscure. 'Piangerò la sorte mia,' Cleopatra’s multifaceted lament from Handel’s 'Giulio Cesare,' is preceded by a chromatically slashing aria by Johann Adolf Hasse for the same doomed monarch. We also hear from Monteverdi’s Ottavia, Handel’s Alcina, and Haydn’s Armida, among others. DiDonato has a way of capturing extreme emotions without resorting to excess: she is a singer not only of flair and power but of intelligence and taste" (Alex Ross, "Critic's Notebook," New Yorker, 11/19/12).

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