Vivaldi Juditha Triumphans

Vivaldi - Juditha Triumphans (2008)
EAC | FLAC+log+cue | full scans | ABC Classics 476 6957 | 1CD | 565 MB
Pinchgut Opera - Attilio Cremonesi - Cantillation - Orchestra of the Antipodes
Sally-Anne Russell (Juditha) - David Walker (Holofernes) - Sara Macliver (Abra) - Fiona Campbell (Vagaus) - Renee Martin (Ozias)

For all the popularity of his orchestral music, Vivaldi’s operas and his sole surviving oratorio - of at least four - have been neglected until recently. Though the balance has been ably redressed in recent years, the appearance of this new recording of Juditha Triumphans is welcome. – Brian Wilson

Antonio Vivaldi - Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernes barbarie
Orchestra da camera dell'Angelicum di Milano - Alberto Zedda
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 374 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Sarx Rec. # ANG 97007-2 | Country/Year: Italy 1997, 1964
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Sacred, Oratorio

"Italian conductor and musicologist Alberto Zedda is widely recognized as one of the world's most prominent authorities on the operas of Gioachino Rossini. (…) Although his work on behalf of Rossini remains widely appreciated, Zedda's handling of early opera composers has drawn criticism, particularly as he eschews period instruments and prefers to devise modern orchestrations for seventeenth century operas.

Antonio Vivaldi - Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernes barbarie
Orchestra da camera dell'Angelicum di Milano - Alberto Zedda
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 374 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Sarx Rec. # ANG 97007-2 | Country/Year: Italy 1997, 1964
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Sacred, Oratorio

"Italian conductor and musicologist Alberto Zedda is widely recognized as one of the world's most prominent authorities on the operas of Gioachino Rossini. (…) Although his work on behalf of Rossini remains widely appreciated, Zedda's handling of early opera composers has drawn criticism, particularly as he eschews period instruments and prefers to devise modern orchestrations for seventeenth century operas.

Since 2001, beginning with Juditha Triumphans, eight operas by Vivaldi have been released in the Vivaldi Edition, each one an event, either the first complete recording (or the first recording!) by first-rate conductors, soloists and orchestras specializing in Baroque. Acclaimed by the press (numerous awards), and by the public (more than 150,000 copies sold since 2001), these recordings have succeeded at last in rehabilitating Antonio Vivaldi, known always for his brilliant concertos, as one of the greatest operatic composers of all time.

‘Brilliant, invigorating, uplifting, King’s sacred music integrale shines like a beacon in a dark world that has largely lost the ability to engage with spiritual celebration. More prosaically, it now becomes the core reference archive for Vivaldi’s sacred music, a skilfully planned, superlatively engineered set of discs that will take an honoured place in recording history’ (Fanfare, USA)

The most beautiful arias from the Vivaldi Edition: La verità in cimento, Juditha Triumphans, L'Olimpiade, Orlando finto pazzo. The album includes outstanding singers and arias that were sensational discoveries when first introduced in this series.

What can anyone add to the praise that has deservedly been heaped on Robert King and the King's Consort's 11 discs of the complete sacred music of Vivaldi? Can one add that every single performance is first class – wonderfully musical, deeply dedicated, and profoundly spiritual? Can one add that every single performer is first class – absolutely in-tune, entirely in-sync, and totally committed? Can one add that every single recording is first class – amazingly clean, astoundingly clear, and astonishingly warm? One can because it's all true and it's all been said before by critics and listeners across the globe.

This disc is a sampler of Vivaldi discs released by France's Naïve label, and it's highly recommended to listeners who haven't yet given these recordings a try. The group of performers is pan-European, with French singers and Italian instrumentalists especially strongly represented, but a compilation like this brings home how well this label has done at forging a unified artistic vision. Its Vivaldi indeed tends toward "furious," as the title proclaims; it is also garish, energetic, dynamically extreme, and in every way devoted to making Vivaldi out as a rebel in his time.

The Tulipa Consort, making its CD début here, is unusual in that it is an instrumental ensemble formed by a singer. Johanette Zomer tells us that, tired of having to make difficult artistic compromises with conductors, she decided to create her own hand-picked body of players to allow her “artistic freedom from the very beginning”. If that sounds like the utterances of a true diva, determined to guarantee herself top-billing and to be sure of showing her voice off to its fullest unimpeded by the artistic sensibilities of others, the evidence of this CD could not be more contrary.