Parnassus Arts Productions came into being in 1999. Dedicated to classical music, they act as both an artist agency and as a production company. Beyond working with musicians to shape their careers, they revive forgotten operas which, through both live performances and recordings, gain vital new currency with an ever-growing audience. The production of albums is an essential part of their activities, showcasing their artists and creating a wider audience for their performances in concert and opera. Parnassus Arts are involved with every aspect of their recording projects, from selecting the cast and initiating collaboration with record companies through to marketing and selling the albums. On their first release they present Leonardo Vinci’s Gismondo Re di Polonia with Max Emanuel Cencic singing the part of Gismondo. He is accompanied by singers like Yuriy Mynenko, Sophie Junker and Jake Arditti, and the {oh!} Orkiestra Historyczna.

Nicola Porpora was Farinelli’s teacher and a rival of Handel and Hasse. As one of the most enigmatic figures of the musical baroque, he gave decisive impetus to opera development in the first half of the 18th century. He worked in Italy especially in his native Naples but also in London, Dresden and Vienna, though not always with great fairness to his fellow composers, but always intent on the development of elementary musical beauties. He knew how to deal with singing voices, both in terms of their training and their effective use. At the beginning of 1735, he wrote the opera seria Polifemo for the Opera of the Nobility, which had been set up in the British metropolis as a competitor to Handel’s opera empire.
The libretto by Paolo Rolli is based on two well-known Greek myths, both linked to the Cyclops Polyphemus: the story about the nymph Galatea and the shepherd Acis, and the encounter with Odysseus, which ends less than favourably for the one-eyed giant. Porpora created music of great expressiveness and virtuosity for the many-coloured scenes, which does not fail to have an effect then or now especially when a top-class ensemble makes Porpora’s score shine.

Carlo il Calvo – ‘Charles the Bald’ – was first performed in 1738 at Rome’s leading opera house, the Teatro delle Dame. Porpora’s opera is based on a Venetian libretto dating from 1699 which, under various titles, has been set to music by composers such as Vinacessi, Keller, Alessandro Scarlatti, Orlandini and Telemann. The score has been preserved at the Conservatory in Naples. The plot is set in that period of the early Middle Ages when Charlemagne’s Europe was disintegrating at the hands of his quarrelling heirs. Its distinctive feature is that the titular hero is a child. In contrast to his colleagues, Porpora even gives him some verses to sing. Louis the German, Charles’ half-brother and Charlemagne’s grandson, abducts the legitimate heir to the throne in order to rob him of his sovereignty. This provides Charles’s mother with the opportunity for heart-wrenching scenes of despair and breathtaking outbursts of felling. On the stage of the premiere were acclaimed singing stars of baroque Europe. The vocal demands are correspondingly exorbitant: in this premiere recording sovereignly and first-class interpreted by Franco Fagioli (Adalgiso), Max Emanuel Cencic (Lottario), Julia Lezhneva (Gildippe), Suzanne Jerosme (Giuditta), Petr Nekoranec (Asprando), Bruno de Sá (Berardo) and Nian Wang (Eduige) with Armonia Atenea under George Petrou.