**** Bryn Terfel, Sir Charles Mackerras

HANDEL ARIAS

(DG)

Following his success in Mozart, Wagner, and Rodgers & Hammerstein, bass-baritone Bryn Terfel has now invaded the territory of Baroque music. He handles Handel with aplomb. There may be a few dry spots in some of the more fiendish coloratura, but who has ever supplied such a range of color and characterization? Rage and revenge are staples of the bass inventory, and we get our share here, in arias from Judas Maccabaeus, Samson, and Alexander's Feast. Then, in "O ruddier than the cherry" (Acis and Galatea), Handel turns the genre inside out, using dazzling coloratura to convey the comedy of Polyphemus's clumsy attempt to woo the lovely Galatea with romantic delicacy. Yet the beauty of the music also humanizes the monster. We're touched by him as we laugh at his absurdity.

Veteran Handelian Sir Charles Mackerras vividly conducts his old friend (years ago he conducted Terfel's professional opera debut). Terfel cheats a little, programming several arias originally intended for tenors or castrati. But who could blame him for wanting to sing "Where'er You Walk" (words by Alexander Pope), the exquisite tenor aria from Semele, or Julius Caesar's Machiavellian "hunting" aria, or "Ombra mai fu" (Xerxes), the most beautiful aria ever written to a tree? And in such familiar pieces as the three selections from Messiah, Terfel sings with a seldom-heard devotional intensity -- which makes this the perfect Christmas present. No recording has given me more pleasure all year.

-- Lloyd Schwartz