Handel<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s ever-changing palette, and its support for the singers \u2013 particularly with the obbligatos \u2013 is unfailingly sensitive.<\/p>And the singers are top-notch. Originally the \u2018lost boy\u2019, Oberto was sung by a celebrated treble, but the countertenor Alois M\u00fchlbacher is sweetly moving in Oberto\u2019s search for his father. In the soubrette<\/em> role, Erin Morley is vocally dazzling as the opportunistic Morgana, while mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong\u2019s Bradamante gravely grounds the action.<\/p>The moments of greatest beauty belong \u2013 as if by right \u2013 to contralto Anna Bonitatibus as Ruggiero and Magdalena Ko\u017een\u00e1 in the title role. Bonitatibus\u2019s delivery of \u2018Verdi prati\u2019 \u2013 a farewell to youth and beauty \u2013 is as arresting as could be desired. Ko\u017een\u00e1, meanwhile, runs the gamut of regal emotion \u2013 light and girlish, then plangently despairing, and finally accepting defeat with grace \u2013 with a gloriously elegant tone, and with a coloratura perfectly measured even at the heights of passion.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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