One of today’s rare true contraltos, Sara Mingardo has become a highly sought-after performer on both the concert and operatic stage in a wide range of repertoire. She has enjoyed successful collaborations with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Myung-Whun Chung, Colin Davis, John Eliot Gardiner, Riccardo Muti, and Roger Norrington, and has taken major roles in several of the award-winning opera recordings in the Vivaldi Edition, including L’Olimpiade, and La Verita in Cimento.

After initially making her reputation in Baroque music alongside William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Christophe Rousset, Emmanuelle Haïm, Sigiswald Kuijken, Gustav Leonhardt and René Jacobs, Sandrine Piau now sings a broad repertoire reflected in her large discography, and has confirmed her outstanding position in the new generation of French singers. Her Handel album with Les Talens Lyriques was an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and was awarded the Stanley Sadie Handel Recording Prize for 2005. In 2007 she released another award-winning recital CD, Évocation, accompanied by Susan Manoff. Both Sara Mingardo and Sandrine Piau have appeared as soloists in La Fida Ninfa, the most recent opera release in Naïve’s Vivaldi Edition.

This new Handel collection features these two great singers alongside the world-renowned Concerto Italiano and its conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini, performing arias and duos from his operas Radamisto, Flavio, Poro, Tamerlano, Rinaldo, Orlando, Alessandro, Deidamia, Amadigi, and Ottone.