the disadvantage of liking a lot of music...

...is that, sometimes, something slips by before you can get your hands on it. Case in point: the unbelievably heartbreaking beauty of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's voice. I first heard it in the recording of John Adams's El Niño. The eleventh movement, "The Christmas Star," is one of the most emotional things I've ever heard and, when I looked into further recordings, I found out that she died of cancer in 2006. So, so sad.

Here she is giving an extraordinary performance as Irene from Handel's Theodora. I'm sorry I came to this so late. What a loss.