Carlo Bergonzi: In Concert

Braga: Il ritratto (Highlights) [Live]

Verdi: I vespri siciliani (1959)

Classical Music

In an age of ultraspecialization that obsesses over minute detail, artists such as Nicola Alaimo remind us that, as elsewhere, in opera versatility is a virtue. The youthful Mr. Alaimo has an impressive CV, broad in scope and variety. His chosen musical home is, of course, 19th century melodrama, ranging from his beloved Rossini, to Bellini, Donizetti and the major works of Verdi. Nonetheless, Mr. Alaimo is thoroughly comfortable with an earlier repertoire comprising Mozart and the Neapolitans, and also with the music of a later era. The giovane scuola had no great love for baritones, but Mr. Alaimo has sung Puccini, Cilea and his Neri Chiaramantesi in Giordano's Cena della beffe made it's mark on opera lovers. The results speak for themselves and his career is there for all to see. Doubters may seek out major venues, conductors or directors where or with whom Nicola Alaimo has not performed- they will not find any, however. Mr. Alaimo has sung Rossini not only all over the world, but also close to home in a long successful partnership with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro as Dandini in Cenerentola, don Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, Aliprando in Matilde di Shabran, the title role in Guillaume Tell, dom Pomponio in Gazzetta, and the Duke of Ordow in Torvaldo e Dorliska.

Classical Music

In 1741, at the age of 56, Handel wrote his masterpiece: Messiah. But he distrusted the London public. He then went to the capital of Ireland, Dublin, and the success was such that the composer later decided to represent it in London too. The oratorio, which was called the greatest musical epic of Christianity, was conducted by Handel himself. The king and the whole court were present. At the last powerful "hallelujah" the sovereign stood up moved to honor the masterful composition. Since that day, which marked the composer's fortune in England, the British public has listened to the last part of the Messiah standing up.

La veglia is a single act opera by Arrigo Pedrollo (1878-1964) based on a libretto by Carlo Linati, taken from In the shadow of the Glen by Synge. It focuses on the role of the woman of humble conditions, exploited by those who promised her, with marriage, a happy life. The old herdsman, Dan Burke, pretends to be dead in order to discover her deception and to have proof of the guilt of his young wife, Nora. While the greedy Michele, interested in Nora's inheritance, having made his calculations, proposes marriage to her, Dan Burke rises in a powerful fury and violently chases his wife out of the house. Nora, after years of submission, finally attacks him, declaring her complete contempt for his horrible character, his avarice, his insensitivity. With bitterness in his heart for his most beautiful years"throw away" he collects his poor things, and prepares, at dawn, to leave towards the unknown. But if the regret for not having enjoyed her youth properly and if the certainty of being left without a place to live oppress her soul, a new twist illuminates the dark story: the meek and gentle Giramondo, to whom Nora, in that same night of wind and storm he had given shelter, comes to her rescue, offers her love, and the promise that, together and free, they will be able, in love, to know the world and the flowering of the seasons under the starry sky.

A few weeks after Rossini made his debut at the San Moisè opera house in Venice with La cambiale di matrimonio; (with libretto by Gaetano Rossi); on 26 December 1810 the same venue hosted Cecchina suonatrice di ghironda; (another libretto by Gaetano Rossi); by an older composer Pietro Generali (1773?-1832). Both works were a farsa – a one-act form that was not necessarily comic. Cecchina in fact belongs to the ‘sentimental’ genre of then newly successful novels; with comedy traditionally confined to a few scenes featuring a pair of bass characters: The action centres on a love-affair made difficult by social differences between the soprano Cecchina; a young woman also from Savoy who has made her fortune on the streets of the French capital; and the tenor Enrico; a noble disguised as a penniless painter. The basic plot is the same one which Rossi would later propose to Donizetti with Linda di Chamounix (1842).

The lyrics of the eleven scenes of Amor vendicato are technically accomplished and facilitate the singers’ task. Indeed, librettist Antonio di Gennaro was one of the best of his kind in Naples in the second half of the 18th century. The simple plot celebrates the triumph of love in the character Amore whose revenge for being mocked by Apollo is to make him fall for Dafne, whose faithfulness to her true love Alceo leads her to fight off Apollo’s efforts. In Ovid’s version of the fable, Daphne changes into a laurel to escape but the librettist puts a decidedly 18th century spin on the Classical original, giving the leading characters a markedly galante air and so making a connection with the audience of the ladies and knights of the Academy. Apollo’s flattery, Dafne’s refusals, Alceo’s uncertainty and Amore’s plotting, (with a pretence to be Aminta the hunter), never show extremes of emotion beyond grace, fickleness, fear or spite. And this atmosphere is perfectly suited to the librettist’s own take on the metamorphosis of Dafne.

The work was produced with the Virtual Stage system, the innovative method that features new blended methods, between real and virtual, between philology and technology, applied to the operatic setting for both audio and scene through multitrack recording. The voice cast consists of young talents headed by virtuoso tenor Leonardo De Lisi as Ulysses. The ensemble instrumental sees musicians prominent of the group Dutch Heliosphere, together with the flautist Marco Di Manno co-founder of the Ensemble, Dimitri Betti assistant to the continuo players musician and harpsichordist and Giacomo Benedetti on the organ, with the participation of the Juvenes Cantores choir of the Cathedral of Sarzana by Alessandra Montali. The musical direction of Federico Bardazzi combines the philological approach, which has always distinguished the interpretations of the Ensemble San Felice, with the development of innovative technological solutions capable of enhancing the sublime expressiveness of Monteverdi's masterpiece.

When opera singers go from their standard repertoire into something new, from the stage to the recording studio or simply from one performance to another, the results may be better or worse, a great achievement or a great disappointment. None of which ever troubled Ettore Bastianini, whose renowned confidence in his own vocal and mental powers would not allow for those all too human failings which other performers may suffer in such circumstances. His authenticity and renown had their origins on stage of course, yet once he had taken that experience into the recording studio, a return to live performance often brought gains in authority and expressive power. The present series of previously unreleased recordings proves this admirably and they are all the more remarkable because they are certainly not the sort of material with which Bastianini felt most at home, (that was always a thoroughly Romantic repertoire, hence dominated by Verdi).

Piccinni: the success achieved with some works represented since 1754 in Italy, his simple and elegant style, his consistently refined and appropriate orchestrations, and his revival and reworking of some already successful popular titles attracted the attention, in the 70s of 1700, not only of Italian audiences and critics but also of some French men of letters and of culture, such as Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, Jean François de La Harpe and Jean-François Marmontel. They saw in him an heir to Pergolesi and suitable to represent the anti-Gluck, capable of representing the new poetics and of upholding a original vision of the music within the operatic drama.

Paisiello distances himself, his sentiments and intellect, from his characters; he describes theatrical realities that on the surface do not seem the least bit serious in parodically grave tones. Voices from another world, Elisi and Iperuranio, who sing alternating macaronic Greek with a stinging parody of a more recent scene from Hell: the one from Orfeo ed Euridice by Calzabigi and Gluck, performed in Naples barely a year before with modifications and additions by Johann Christian Bach and others.

As soon as he had finished the finale of Turandot [1925-6], Alfano began working with political journalist and man of letters Arturo Rossato, [Vicenza 1882-1942]. He offered Alfano a libretto in one act, Madonna Imperia, based on La belle Impéria, by Honoré de Balzac. The fair lady of high society Imperia enjoys the protection of the chancellor of Ragusa and lives a life of pleasure in Constance among prelates and nobles and bewitches one of the bishop of Bordeaux’s young choristers, Filippo Mala, who declares his love for her and has to sing her a song as though he were a troubadour. This love arouses the jealousy of Ragusa, who makes Filippo go away and leave Imperia to him, but the passion between Imperia and Filippo wins out and the opera ends with an erotic encounter between the two offstage.