The "royal trio" referred to in the title of this Harmonia Mundi release is a trio of composers associated with London's Royal Academy of Music, an opera company formed by a group of aristocrats around 1719. The company shrewdly hired the newly arrived George Frideric Handel as its orchestra director; he in turn programed his own music and recruited some impressive singers, including the great Italian castrato Senesino. Given the impossibility of replicating the muscular sound of the castrati in a modern context, singers divide broadly into two groups: those who try to give their voices as much heft as possible, and those who pursue a different, more lyrical sound instead. American countertenor Lawrence Zazzo falls into the latter category. He has little power in his lower register, but he is quite distinctive at the top: of all the countertenors active today, he may be the one most likely to give the impression that it's a woman singing. He interacts very elegantly with the small forces of the historical-instrument group La Nuova Musica and its director, David Bates. The present album derived from a program with which the forces involved had great success in live performances, and there's an ease in the ensemble that provides a positive X factor here. Aside from the arias by Handel, most of the music qualifies as rare; the arias from operas by Giovanni Bononcini and even more so Attilio Ariosti mostly had to be rescued from old songbooks. It's true that they have the effect of showing why Handel made the impact he did, but the overall effect is a deeper grasp on Handel's world than most listeners will have had. Recommended especially for Handel opera aficionados.
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