Category: Recording

Roberta Invernizzi, Accademia Hermans, Fabio Ciofini
78:02
Glossa GCD 922904
Music from Alcina, Berenice, Giulio Cesare, Giustino, Lotario, Poro & Scipione

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his CD draws upon the many queens who grace Handel operas, although also the chief female opera divas, Cuzzoni and Strada del Pò, whose technical skill and dramatic presences inspired the music for his most successful female roles. An extended and slightly laboured playing-card metaphor dominates the programme notes, which however also find time to paint in some context for these major female influences on Handel’s writing. Invernizzi is in splendid voice, characterizing Handel’s heroines with a wonderfully varied vocal palette. For some she finds an almost shrew-like quality in her versatile voice, for others a rapturous lyricism, and only occasionally did I find the mannered vibrato in her upper range disconcerting – she more than amply shows that she can sing pure upper notes, but is inclined to lapse into vibrato if these are held for any duration. This is a tiny and maybe idiosyncratic objection to a generally superb and extremely expressive voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO55lLK9H88

Ms. Invernizzi is beautifully supported by Accademia Hermans, one of the veritable plethora of simply superb period operatic instrumental ensembles which seem to have sprung up over the last decade. They play with absolute unanimity and powerful expressiveness, and are given a couple of instrumental slots which provide a bit of relief from the otherwise wall-to-wall arias. These are all performances to savour, and are wonderfully evocative of the golden age of Baroque opera in the London of first half of the 18th century.

D. James Ross

Xavier Sabata, Armonia Atenea, George Petrou
66:00
Aparté AP143
Ariosti, Caldara, Conti, Handel, Hasse, Orlandini, Sarro, Torri & Vivaldi

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is an intriguing CD bringing recits and arias from early 18th-century operas by big names such as Handel and Vivaldi, other composers whose stars are currently in the ascendant such as Hasse, Conti and Caldara and relatively neglected composers such as Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, Attilio Ariosti and Pietro Torri. As soon as I put on the CD and heard Sabata’s voice, I instantly thought of Handel’s great castrato star Senesino, and strangely several of the arias recorded here were composed for him. Like Senesino, Sabata has a wonderfully rich low alto voice, as well as the gift for dramatic pathos which Senesino clearly also had. The programme notes make a valiant if not entirely successful attempt to tie the arias together using ancient Greek theories of drama, although the English translation unfortunately uses the word ‘hybris’ rather than the more customary ‘hubris’, and the whole construct is stretched ad absurdum in trying to embrace Hasse’s oratorio on the Conversion of St Agostini! I would have preferred more information on the relatively unknown but excellent composers whose music is recorded here, often for the first time. No matter, this is a wonderfully engaging CD, and while the various curious photos of various parts of Mr Sabata’s anatomy being drenched with water are undoubtedly intended to lend the product visual impact, this is a CD which more than stands on its considerable musical merits.

If the excellent period ensemble Armonia Atenea occasionally seem to occupy a slightly more distant and more resonant acoustic space than the soloist, their contribution is superbly dynamic and, in the haunting aria “Gelido in igni vena” from Vivaldi’s Farnace, positively apocalyptic. Listening to these powerful performances it is easy to understand how it was that Senesino and his fellow castrati occupied the cult status that they did, able as they were to reduce audiences to tears with their sheer vocal wizardry and musicality. These are characteristics which Xavier Sabata also has in abundance, and on the basis of this CD I have mentally added him to my list of remarkable male alto voices which this new generation has produced.

D. James Ross

Terry Wey countertenor, Bach Consort Wien, Rubén Dubrovsky (with Vivica Genaux mezzo-soprano &  Valer Sabadus countertenor)
74:40
deutsche harmonia mundi 889854105020
Music by Gasparini, Handel, Hasse, Pollarolo, Sarro, Torri & Vinci

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he concept of selections centred on great singers of the past has become popular in recent years. It is an excellent idea, not only as it provides a focus that might otherwise be missing, but – and more importantly – it can provide unique insight into the kind of voice possessed by a singer before we had the aid of recordings to determine such things. This is especially valuable in the case of a singer like the alto castrato Antonio Maria Bernacchi, whose fame rests principally, if perhaps unfairly, on a magnificent coloratura technique employed at the expence of expression.

Bernacchi was born in Bologna in 1685. After making his first operatic appearance in Genoa in 1703, he sang in 1709 in Vienna and Venice, the latter the city in which he would appear most frequently. But his fame rapidly spread throughout Italy and he was also engaged by Handel (at huge cost) in London, where he created the roles of Lotario  in the eponymous opera (1729) and Arsace in Partenope  a few months later. Eartlier, in 1720, he had been engaged by the Elector of Bavaria in Munich, service in which Bernacchi nominally remained until 1735. Particularly in his latter years he was known for his excessive obesity, a famous caricature depicting him having his stomach held up on stage by an extra. Bernacchi died in 1756, two decades after he had retired with a reputation on a par with the likes of Senesino and Farinelli, the latter of whom for a short while studied with Bernacchi.

The opening aria on the CD, ‘Pace e guerra’ from Pietro Torri’s Lucio Vero  (Munich, 1720) will do little to dispel Bernacchi’s repute as an exponent of virtuoso coloratura, although the opening word announces Swiss countertenor Terry Wey’s credentials with a finely graded messa di voce. Ironically the aria, like a number of the faster pieces, is taken at a rapid tempo, complete with fashionably clipped orchestral playing, that only serves to underline Bernacchi’s reputation and the rather vapid nature of the aria. On the plus side it shows Wey’s articulation of rapid passagework to be excellent, if rather less praiseworthy in communicating the meaning of the text. Here, as elsewhere, Wey’s ornamentation of da capo repeats is largely sensible, mostly avoiding the wilder ascents and leaps that so many singers appear to be unable to resist. Rather more interesting than ‘Pace e guerra’ and coloratura arias like ‘A dispetta’ from Gasparini’s Il Bajazet  is the number of slower, more expressive numbers that suggest Bernacchi’s talents were far wider than has been suggested. Among them are arias from the two London operas of Handel’s in which he appeared. Arsace’s ‘Ch’io parta’ from Partenop e is sung by Wey with great expressive sensitivity, while the exquisitely lovely ‘Non disperi peregrino’ from Lotario  is a ‘simile’ aria breathing calm spiritual advice, conveyed with eloquently sustained tone and line, though again I’m not entirely convinced Wey has captured the inner essence of the text. This repertoire remains full of undiscovered treasure, of which there are several examples included here, foremost an utterly wonderful duet from Hasse’s Demetrio, in which Wey is joined, as he is in several extracts, by mezzo Vivica Genaux. This is one of those pieces – originally written for Hasse’s wife Faustina Bordoni and Bernacchi – where Hasse’s extravagant reputation as an Italianate lyricist par excellence  is fully vindicated, a gorgeously flowing andante that synthesises passionate intensity with truly profound emotion.

Overall this is a highly satisfying CD. The repertoire, much of it new to CD, is often revelatory, while Wey is a sensitive, responsive singer who shows himself capable of holding a sustained line with security, even if tonally his voice is perhaps not the most distinctive or characterful. With the exception of the caveat regarding brittle, clipped phrasing in quicker numbers, he is well supported by the Bach Consort Wien. Lovers of Baroque opera should snap up the disc without delay.

Brian Robins