Magali Leger

Handel is famous for his problematic relationship with singers, once holding a soprano out of the window after she refused to sing one of his arias because it was too simple to show off her voice to the full. I can't remember, but I think it was also Handel who said something like "God, in his infinite justice, does not give the best voices to those with the best looks or the best minds."

A shame he could not have met Magali Leger. While channel-hopping, I happened upon a concert of her singing Handel arias with Ensemble RosaSolis, and was awestruck. Mainstream opera singers aren't usually that good at baroque music, which requires that you only emphasise the important notes and half-voice the decorations, and use vibrato sparingly (incidentally, another of my favourite musical quotations is from Wagner, who said he was sure that vibrato was fine once you got used to it - it was just that he could never get used to it). Not only does she manage this as well as baroque specialists like Emma Kirkby, she manages to put more warmth into her voice than the average baroque performer (the one criticism I could make of Kirkby is that she often sounds like she wants to be a choirboy).

Added to all that, she has an angelic beauty. I mean, she even sweats beautifully (or "glows" as Jane Austen would put it).