Category: Recording

Carlo Vistoli countertenor, Talenti Vulcanici, Stefano Demicheli
62:26
Arcana A 427
Handel, Pergolesi, Sarro & A. Scarlatti

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]amous for creating the eponymous role in Handel’s spectacularly successful opera Rinaldo, Nicola Grimaldi – known as Nicolino – was as admired for his lyrical voice as his refined abilities as an actor, the second of these allowing him to draw in the crowds until his death at 59 when his voice was probably past its youthful best. Carlo Vistoli is yet another of the current crop of remarkable male alto voices, whose vocal ease even in the higher registers in which Nicolino excelled is apparent.

And having introduced us to his readings of three arias from Rinaldo  with orchestral episodes, he also performs other music inspired and sung by Nicolino, including Arias from Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il Cambise  and Pergolesi’s Salustia  as well as a section from Arsace  by the relatively unknown Neapolitan composer Domenico Natale Sarro. As more attention is paid to the rich Baroque operatic scene in Naples, it can come as no surprise that Sarro turns out to be a composer of striking capabilities and originality. Talenti Vulcanici are another of these superb Baroque ensembles specializing in accompanying operatic Divas and Divos. Are they cloning these somewhere secretly, or are the same excellent players regularly meeting up under different names? It would seem not, and that these groups have simply sprung up to meet a growing demand for Baroque opera live and on CD. A CD like this ultimately stands or falls on the merits of the soloist, and with a couple of slight reservations, mainly regarding excessive vibrato when he turns up the volume, I must say that Vistoli provides thoughtful and vocally impressive accounts of this dramatic music.

D. James Ross

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.

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