Petibon

Philippe Jaroussky as Ruggiero is in thrall to Patricia Petibon as the sorceress Alcina in Katie Mitchell’s virtuosic production of Handel’s opera from the 2015 Aix-en-Provence Festival, described by Bachtrack as “a night of a thousand delights”. Conducted by Andrea Marcon, this was, in the words of Opera News, “musically … a performance of the highest festival level”. The production of Alcina, by the British director Katie Mitchell, was welcomed by the Financial Times as “meticulously executed …, rich in detail, consummately polished”. Like Mitchell’s Aix-en-Provence staging of George Benjamin’s hugely successful Written on Skin (first seen in 2012), it offers simultaneous action in multiple zones of the stage, with Alcina’s elegant boudoir taking pride of place. As the New York Times wrote: “It involves a huge sorcery machine for turning people into animals (or whatever). And Ms. Mitchell works magic of her own onstage, constantly showing the enchantresses Alcina and Morgana alternating between glamorous public personas and their ‘real life’, older, private selves …There are also bits of simulated sex, mingling genders and suggesting, among other things, inventive new ways to hit high notes.”

Stefano Landi, who was Monteverdi's junior by about 20 years, was active in Rome, whereas Monteverdi was based in Venice. Landi spent two formative years in Venice, though, and absorbed the progressive musical ideas of Monteverdi and other seconda prattica composers. That contact would explain why Il Sant'Alessio (1632) sounds like a Monteverdi opera. Its expressive recitatives, melodically gratifying set pieces, mixture of serious and comic elements, and the complex psychology of its characters make it a piece that should appeal to opera fans who love L'incoronazione di Poppea.

This is a mixed bag, but it is a mixture of wonderful stuff put together with considerable expertise. Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a major composer of the French Baroque, served at the Sainte-Chappelle in Paris, and wrote much music of solemnity and grandeur, but was also principal composer for the Comedie Française where he wrote music of a lighter nature. What we get here is mainly the latter, more directly entertaining Charpentier, and we get it in the forms of airs serieux, which are refined songs intended for court circles, and airs a boire, in a more popular style.

Rosso, soprano Patricia Petitbon's collection of Italian Baroque opera arias, may well be one of the most fun Baroque vocal recitals a listener is likely to encounter because Petitbon is so obviously having the time of her life. The arias, some familiar and some genuine rarities, from operas and oratorios by Handel, Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Stradella, Porpora, and Sartorio, express a broad range of emotion, including overwhelming grief, delight and wonder, seductive innuendo, and explosive rage. Petitbon, a spectacular singing actress, throws herself into them with such unselfconscious abandon and such interpretive insight that the listener, even without looking at the texts, is left with no doubt about the specific, sometimes evolving, emotional states of the characters.

When the historic Theatre du Chatelet in Paris re-opened after a period of extensive refurbishment, the first two productions mounted in the theatre were Gluck’s Alceste and Orphée et Eurydice. Both operas were sung in their French versions and were mounted and designed by Robert Wilson and conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. This was the first time Wilson and Gardiner had collaborated and their individual credentials combined to produce an exceptional result.

It's tempting to think these duets, which Handel composed at various points in his career, are just chips from the master's block. But they constitute a delightful hour's worth of music, and when sung with the vocal brilliance and stylishness displayed here by ten top singers in various pairings, they add up to one of those rare discs it's hard to stop returning to. Handel must have thought a lot of them too–since he reused some of this music for oratorios like Messiah–and turned to the chamber duet form in his last years as well. There isn't a weak link among the soloists, though the contributions of Natalie Dessay, Veronique Gens, and Sara Mingardo are especially noteworthy. Whether asked to sing plaintive laments or flashy coloratura displays, these well-matched voices thrill.

The myth of Orpheus–the divine musician who went to Hades to rescue his bride Eurydice from the dead and whose song actually persuaded Pluto to release her–has been irresistible to operatic composers from Monteverdi to Offenbach. One of the happiest rediscoveries of the Baroque revival is this lovely one-act chamber opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, which combines the gentle lilt typical of French Baroque music with the beautiful melodies and delicious suspensions in which Charpentier excelled. Charpentier diverged from the myth in one important respect: he omitted the tragic ending in which Orpheus loses Eurydice a second time, instead allowing the couple to live happily ever after.

William Christie’s account on Erato is probably now a first recommendation… he has marshalled expert singers; Alan Ewing’s Polyphemus is particularly good, well characterized and spirited. Indeed, the whole performance is full of life and personality, and Christie holds everything together with finesse and grace.

Mozart was just 14 years old when he composed Mitridate, re di Ponto, a noble opera seria based on a play by Racine. A great success at its premiere, it is only rarely staged today, so this 2016 performance, led by Emmanuelle Haïm at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs Elysées, was by definition a special occasion. The dazzlingly virtuosic cast is led by tenor Michael Spyres and sopranos Patricia Petibon and Sabine Devieilhe, while the intense modern staging is by Clément Hervieu-Léger, a resident director at France’s most illustrious theatre company, the Comédie Française.