Berenice

Scipione was the eighth complete opera Handel wrote for the Royal Academy of Music (it was also preceded by Muzio Scevola, of which Handel wrote only act III). Completed in 1726, it followed three of Handel’s greatest operas, Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano, and Rodelinda. While it is not on the level of those masterpieces, and despite its hasty composition, it contains much that is good and worthy of an occasional hearing.
FANFARE: Ron Salemi

You may have noticed that two composers are named for this opera. As we know, opera librettos frequently were set to music by more than one composer in the 18th (and even 19th) century. Francesco Corselli was French by birth (Francois Courcelle was his real name) but worked in Parma and Madrid. His Farnace was written in 1736. Vivaldi composed his Farnace in 1727. For his performances of Vivaldi's version (in Madrid in October, 2001), the great string player and conductor Jordi Savall decided to do what was common practice back in Vivaldi's time–add some arias and other music from a contemporary work on the same subject–and for this he chose selections from Corselli's score. For the record, the bits of Corselli that Savall includes are a Sinfonia plus a recitative and aria for Berenice used as a prologue to Act 1, an aria for Farnace to begin Act 2, and a march preceding the action in Act 3–altogether a bit more than 20 minutes… –Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

This welcome mid-priced reissue of Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques 1994 Fnac Music recording of Handel s Scipione features a cast of stellar singers. Their scintillating performance was universally praised upon its initial release, and this version remains the only available recording. Scipione is an opera in three acts based on a libretto by Paolo Antonio Rolli, composed for the Royal Academy of Music in 1726. It was based upon the life of Roman General Scipio Africanus. Handel revived the opera in 1730, but it did not receive another production until 1967. Christophe Rousset and his band play gorgeously and with great energy.

Until 1750, Europe was under the spell of the Italian opera seria for about 70 years. Then the audience began to develop a taste for more drama: no more succession of arias that were loosely welded together by an overly familiar plot, but a story in which people could live with the main characters. The French, who had stubbornly refused to go along in the European mania for Italian opera seria and had developed their own national opera, could look forward to an increasing influence of French opera. This can be clearly observed in the operas of Christoph Willibald von Gluck, who has gone down in history as the great opera reformer of the 18th century. However, there were even more composers who had implemented innovations and one of them was Niccolò Jommeli (1714-74).

Farnace was apparently one of Vivaldi's favorite operas, because he mounted numerous productions in various cities, and wrote six versions of the score, more than of any of his other operas. The conventions of operatic vocal characterizations that came to be standard – higher voices in the sympathetic roles, and lower voices in villainous roles – had not yet been established, and Farnace features a baritone and contralto in the heroic roles, with a soprano as the villain. Soprano Adriana Fernández shines as the wicked Berenice, who is redeemed at the very last minute. She has a full, creamy voice that she deploys appealing agility and warmth.

Vivaldi's operas were virtually unknown until the late decades of the 20th century, but by the early years of the 21st more and more were coming to light, on recordings if not to the same extent on-stage, and some have been recorded multiple times, thanks to the dedicated research of early music specialists and the emergence of a spate of first-rate counter tenors. Such is the case with Farnace, which receives its second recording on the Virgin Classics label with counter tenor Max Emanuel Cencic leading an extraordinary cast of soloists. Diego Fasolis conducts the period instrument orchestra I Barocchisti and Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera, Lugano, in a vibrant reading of the score.

Review by Stephen Eddins