Alan Curtis

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Antonio Vivaldi: Ercole su'l Termodonte (2007)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Antonio Vivaldi: Ercole su'l Termodonte (2007)
NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | Italiano (LinearPCM, 2 ch) | Italiano (Dolby AC3, 6 ch) | 136 min | 7,36 Gb (DVD9)
Classics | Label: Dynamic | Sub: Italiano, English, Francais, Deutsch, Espanol

Ercole su’l Termodonte was Vivaldi’s 16th opera, appearing in 1723 in Rome. There was a Papal ban on women appearing on stage at the time and so the opera was sung by seven castrati and a male tenor, the latter singing the title role, Hercules. Portraying either the Amazons of myth or Greek warriors, the castrati must have been quite a scene and made quite a sound. Conducted by a Catholic priest–Vivaldi himself–with red hair, the entire proposition boggles the mind.
Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Domenico Scarlatti: Tolomeo e Alessandro ovvero La corona disprezzata (2010)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Domenico Scarlatti: Tolomeo e Alessandro ovvero La corona disprezzata (2010)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 759 Mb | Total time: 57:38+54:51+44:43 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | # 28947640349 | Recorded: 2009

Universally admired for his keyboard music, the vocal music of Domenico Scarlatti has until very recently been largely ignored. For many years, the opera Tolomeo e Alessandro was known only from a manuscript of Act I in a private collection in Milan. Recently the entire opera turned up in England and surprisingly revealed that Domenico was after all a very fine dramatic composer, perhaps even more appealingly so than his father Alessandro. It is tempting to think that Handel, whose Tolomeo uses the same libretto, may have known this setting by his old friend, 'Mimmo', and tried to outdo him in setting the same texts to music. He was not always successful.
Ann Hallenberg, Alan Curtis. Il Complesso Barocco - Hidden Handel (2012)

Ann Hallenberg, Alan Curtis. Il Complesso Barocco - Hidden Handel (2012)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 402 Mb | Total time: 71:45 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naïve | # V 5326 | Recorded: 2010

Most of the Handel pieces on this release are "hidden" in that if you go to the editions of the operas from which they are taken, you won't find them. Many of them were "insertion arias," written for revivals of Handel operas where the new singers wanted something tailor made. Two were written for insertion into the opera of someone else, namely Alessandro Scarlatti, and there are several miscellaneous rarities and rather odd instrumental pieces for interludes. It might sound like an excursion into the dustier corners of the Handel repertory on the part of the historical-instrument group Il Complesso Barocco and their conductor Alan Curtis, who has been at this kind of thing since most of the current crop of Baroque opera conductors were toddlers and who presumably has earned the right to do what he wants.
Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Handel: Giulio Cesare (2012)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Handel: Giulio Cesare (2012)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 1.22 Gb | Total time: 77:55+74:08+68:27 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naïve | OP30536 | Recorded: 2011

This exciting studio recording is the second project resulting from the collaboration between Marie-Nicole Lemieux Karina Gauvin and conductor and harpsichordist Alan Curtis' award winning Complesso Barocco. Giulio Cesare is one of Handel's most renowned operas and the role of Giulio Cesare is considered to be one of the most beautiful roles in the baroque opera. The full vocal cast is stunning and Alan Curtis shows once again why he is considered one of the world's leading Handel specialists.
Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco, Ann Hallenberg - Handel: Ariodante (2008)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco, Ann Hallenberg - Handel: Ariodante (2008)
NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | Italiano | LinearPCM, 2 ch | Dolby AC3, 6 ch | 7.72+4.08 Gb (DVD9+DVD5) | 157 min
Classical | Label: Dynamic | Sub: Italiano, English, Francais, Deutsch, Espanol

Founded in Italy in 1992 by Alan Curtis, one of the most acclaimed specialists in the interpretation of pre-romantic music, Il Complesso Barocco, has become a renowned international baroque orchestra with a focus on Italian Baroque opera and oratorio. Their high standard for interpretation, intonation and stylistic accuracy has led to their being requested in the most important concert venues and festivals in Europe.
Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco, Patrizia Ciofi, Joyce Di Donato - Amor e gelosia: Handel Operatic Duets (2004)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco, Patrizia Ciofi, Joyce Di Donato - Amor e gelosia: Handel Operatic Duets (2004)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 361 Mb | Total time: 73:35 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Virgin Veritas | # 45628 | Recorded: 2003

The duets in his operas are the special treats, coming at climactic points – most often, two lovers' supposedly final parting, or their ultimate reunion. Try 'Io t'abbraccio', from Rodelinda, or the wonderful 'Per la porte del tormento' from Sosarme. We have several pieces from Poro, first the intense little love duet in Act 2, and later the two arias in which Poro and Cleofide swear eternal fidelity – which they fling back at each other when, in a duet we also hear, both believe themselves betrayed. Then there's the delightful little minor-key duet from Faramondo, the quarrel duet from Atalanta, the charmingly playful piece from Muzio Scevola, and the extraordinary one for the pleading Angelica and the furious, maddened Orlando. Handel's understanding of the shades and accents of love are something to marvel at.

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Vivaldi: Motezuma (2011)  Music

Posted by Vilboa at May 22, 2023
Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Vivaldi: Motezuma (2011)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Vivaldi: Motezuma (2011)
NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | Italiano (LinearPCM, 2 ch) | (Dolby AC3, 6 ch) | 4.22+7.45 Gb (DVD5+DVD9) | 153 min
Classical | Dynamic | Sub.: Italiano, English, Francais, Deutsch, Espanol

Motezuma is Vivaldi’s only opera set in the New World. The manuscripts for this rarely performed and rarely heard opera were only rediscovered in 2002 and currently only one CD version exists recorded by Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco. Of the CD recording, BBC Music Magazine wrote: “The instrumentalists of Il Complesso Barocco are on excellent form as indeed is Vivaldi himself in a rewarding score”.
Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Francesco Bartolomeo Conti: David (2007)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Francesco Bartolomeo Conti: David (2007)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 769 Mb | Total time: 76:03+79:05 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Virgin Classics | 9463788772 | Recorded: 2003

The Florentine Francesco Bartolomeo Conti (1682-1732) was the finest theorbo player in early 18th-century Europe, and spent almost his entire career at the Habsburg court in Vienna. He composed sacred and secular vocal works special enough to warrant the attention of both Bach and Handel. Conti's oratorio David, a setting of a dramatic libretto by Apostolo Zeno, was first performed at Vienna in March 1724. The cast of singers included the tenor Francesco Borosini, soon afterwards a principal cast member for Handel in Tamerlano and Rodelinda (Conti's writing for Borosini descends to a low G, hence the decision here to cast baritone Furio Zanasi as Saul).
Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Antonio Vivaldi: Motezuma (2006)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Antonio Vivaldi: Motezuma (2006)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 966 Mb | Total time: 77:00+63:41+54:07 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | # 0289 477 5996 6 | Recorded: 2005

Conductor Jean-Claude Malgoire must be kicking himself pretty hard right now. Several years ago, impatient that no trace of Antonio Vivaldi's only opera set in the New World, Motezuma, seemed to be turning up, Malgoire cobbled his own version of the work by pulling together a variety of music from other bits and scraps of Vivaldi and fitting it to the extant libretto. Lo and behold, with the rediscovery of the Berliner Singakademie collection in Russia early in this century, the manuscript of Motezuma is now a known quantity, and it turns out that Malgoire's concoction bears no resemblance whatsoever to it. Nonetheless, even he has to be grateful that this extraordinary score has been located, and now, recorded by Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco on the Archiv Produktion release Vivaldi: Motezuma.

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Gluck: Ezio (2011)  Music

Posted by ArlegZ at Sept. 8, 2020
Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Gluck: Ezio (2011)

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Gluck: Ezio (2011)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 646 Mb | Total time: 69:25+77:25 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Virgin Classics ‎| 5099907092923 | Recorded: 2008

Gluck wrote his opera seria Ezio in 1750 for production in Prague. (In 1762, after the formal and stylistic breakthroughs of Orfeo ed Euridice, he revised the opera for a Vienna production, but it's the original version that's recorded here.) The opera has many of the characteristics of Italian late Baroque opera; it's essentially a series of arias separated by accompanied recitatives, the formula that the composer reacted against in Orfeo. It's not Gluck at his most innovative or original, but it's a fine example of opera seria, with a number of impressive arias and some very expressive recitatives, and it can make quite an impact in a performance as fine as this one.