Awards 2009: Baroque - Vocal

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
Sarah Connolly et al.; Choir & Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Steven Devine, Elizabeth Kenny
Chandos

"As fine a Dido and Aeneas as we have had for many a year", said Gramophone's James Inverne, and his reviewer Jonathan Freeman-Attwood confirms, "Here is England's first great opera presented with a truly cohesive sense of theatrical purpose". Praise all round for Sarah Connolly, the driving force behind the recording; from various reviewers we read of "a regal gravity", "imposing presence, pathos and unassailable dignity", "both majesty and fragility", "a combination of grace and passion", "no finer Dido on disc", "marrying an excellent lyric coloratura mezzo to a first-rate musical mind". Oh, and they liked the other singers and musicians too.

Runners-up:
Bach: "Jesu, deine Passion" (cantatas). soloists; Collegium Vocale Gent/Philippe Herreweghe [Harmonia Mundi]
Handel: Alcina. Joyce DiDonato, et al.; Il Complesso Barocco/Alan Curtis [Archiv]
Telemann: Brockes-Passion. soloists; RIAS Kammerchor; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/René Jacobs [Harmonia Mundi]
Vivaldi: La Fida Ninfa. soloists; Ensemble Matheus/Jean-Christoph Spinosi [Naive]