BBT Audio: Handel’s Last Prima Donna – Giulia Frasi in London
Ruby Hughes soprano (BBT Award 2014)
Chandos Records CHSA 0403 Released 2 March 2018
Ruby Hughes pays tribute to a fascinating but forgotten Italian singer, Giulia Frasi, who came to London in 1742 and, over her 30-year career, became the most celebrated soprano in the English oratorio style. Her sweet voice and dramatic abilities brought her to the attention of Handel and she was the inspiration for many of his greatest works written in the last decade of his life, including Susanna, Solomon, Theodora and Jephtha in which she performed all the dramatic heroine roles. With this album – recorded with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Laurence Cummings – Ruby fulfils her own passion for baroque music and presents a story that has seldom been told and never before been presented through Frasi’s musical repertoire. On 7 April, at the London Handel Festival, Ruby, the OAE and Cummings give a recital, A Celebration of Giulia Frasi.