Anna Prohaska - Serpent & Fire - The Guardian

Another stunner from soprano Anna Prohaska. Following her wonderful disc of war-related music, she now turns her attention to two tragic heroines, Dido and Cleopatra. Both have inspired great music across the centuries, but Prohaska resists the attention to go as far as Berlioz, and frames this baroque collection with the start and finish of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. It’s all beautifully planned and paced, with riveting instrumental interludes from Il Giardino Armonico, including Matthew Locke’s astonishingly modern Curtain Tune.