Astolfo

There are three absolutely amazing performances on this set, and not because the voices are more or less beautiful than usual: those of Victoria de los Angeles, Marilyn Horne, and Sesto Bruscantini. The first-named sings here with dramatic expression, cleanly executed coloratura runs, and trills, none of which she was known for through most of her career. By dramatic expression I do not mean the generalized drama of her Butterfly, but word-painting and attention to text, of getting inside the character. Her coloratura runs here are far more cleanly executed than on her famous recording of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. As for trills, yes, she attempted a couple of imperfect ones on her recordings, but none in her Jewel Song from Faust, neither the mono recording from 1952 nor the stereo remake of 1957, neither in Nedda’s 1953 “Ballatella” nor in Antonia’s music in the 1965 Contes d’Hoffman.

This live recording from Paris in 1972 has two main attraction: the chance to hear a very young - 25 years old, in fact - José Carreras at the outset of his career and, more importantly, I think, the opportunity to hear Vasso Papantoniou, an excellent soprano largely unknown outside her native Greece where she has made her career and who at times sounds uncannily like her compatriot, Maria Callas, especially in the middle of her voice and in her deployment of highly expressive downward portamenti. Her vibrato is faster and, like Callas, top notes can be shrill, be she is a complete artist who obviously impressed the Parisian audience. To hear her at her best either her opening or closing aria will do; listen to her from "M'odi, ah! mo'di" to the end of the opera, where she opts to use the virtuoso aria Donizetti wrote especially for diva Henriette Méric-Lelande and very good she is too.

With this production of Francesca Caccini’s 'La liberazione di Ruggerio dall'isola di Alcina', directed by Elena Sartori, an important stepping-stone in the development of 17th-century opera receives a superb new recording from Glossa. For much of her career - Caccini was a composer, a virtuoso singer, a teacher, a poet and a multi-instrumentalist - she worked at the Medici court, and was commissioned by the grand duchess of Tuscany, Maria Maddalena of Austria, to write this commedia in musica for performance in Florence in 1625.

This live recording, from the Huelgas Ensemble directed by Paul van Nevel, is the second version of this early baroque opera to appear within a few months. The first was from an ensemble combining Allabastrina, La Pifarescha and an excellent team of vocal soloists directed by Elena Sartori. I am not in a position to make a direct comparison between the two versions at the moment, but one obvious difference is that the present recording from Van Nevel takes 88 minutes and is spread over two CDs, whereas Elena Sartori’s team manages to squeeze the work onto one disc of 79 minutes.

Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramma, or opera, in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan with Lelande and Pedrazzi. While not performed as regularly as Donizetti's more popular operas, Lucrezia's aria "Com'è bello", Orsino's Brindisi "Il segreto per esser felice", the tenor's "Di pescator ignobile", and the bass aria "Vieni, la mia vendetta!" are all very effective and famous melodic moments from the opera and have been performed and recorded frequently.
(wikipedia)

Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso was chosen to open the 43rd Festival della Valle d’Itria. This baroque opera is a true feast for the senses, with peaks of sheer poetry and a sense of wonder. Director Fabio Ceresa was clearly inspired by the works of Gustav Klimt, both for the setting and the costumes. Conductor and Continuo Diego Fasolis leads the excellent Barocchisti ensemble with an elegant touch, and an unfailing ability to fully convey the music’s nuanced coloratura.

La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (En. "The Liberation of Ruggiero from the island of Alcina") is a comic opera in four scenes by Francesca Caccini, first performed 3 February 1625 at the Villa di Poggio Imperiale in Florence, with a libretto by Ferdinando Saracinelli based on Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. It is the first opera written by a woman and was long considered to be the first Italian opera to be performed outside of Italy.[a] It was performed to celebrate the visit of Prince Władysław of Poland during Carnival 1625, and it was revived in Warsaw in 1628. The work was commissioned by her employer Regent Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, wife of Cosimo II de' Medici.

Known for her idiosyncratic performances of baroque repertoire and eccentric personal style, the German coloratura soprano Simone Kermes trained in her native Leipzig, with early successes including the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. Bach has not, however, figured prominently in her career since then – Kermes gravitated towards Vivaldi, Handel and the Neapolitan composers who wrote for the great castrati, such as Riccardo Broschi, Alessandro Scarlatti and Porpora. (She has recorded several solo albums of such repertoire for Sony, including Dramma, and Colori d’Amore – reviewing the latter, BBC Music Magazine described her as ‘a remarkable artist, charming, fascinating and boldly risk-taking by turns’).