Complesso

Founded in Amsterdam in 1979 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 rich discography was for a time devoted to the late madrigal repertory, and the film director Werner Herzog chose the ensemble as protagonists for his film Morte a cinque voci (Prix Italia 1996 and Premio Rembrandt, Amsterdam 1996) dedicated to the composer Carlo Gesualdo.

Alan Curtis' stellar recording of Alcina, which joins a respectable number of very fine recordings of the opera, is remarkable for the supple liveliness of his conducting and the outstanding performances of the soloists. The elasticity of his performance, leading Il Complesso Barocco, should dispel any misconceptions about Baroque music being rigid and metronomic. The nuanced care with which he brings out the emotional depth of Handel's writing is evident from the first measures of the overture and enlivens the entire opera.

Alan Curtis continues his exemplary series of Handel operas for Archiv with Ezio, a 1732 work that has received few modern productions. Its initial limited success and failure to generate much interest until the late twentieth century may have to do with its length (over three hours), its preponderance of recitatives, and the composer's reluctance to use the voices together in ensembles, so that the entire opera, until the final chorus, consists of solo singing. Handel's gift for astute psychological insight and distinctive musical characterization is evident throughout the score, and the recitatives, which are necessary for explicating Metastasio's convoluted plot, are not a problem when they are performed with as much vivid dramatic realism as they are here.

For the 1727 season – the waning days of opera's popularity in London – transplanted German composer George Frederick Handel wrote no less than three operas for the English capital's stage. Tolomeo, rè d'Egitto was the last and least enthusiastically received of them. Unsuccessfully revived in 1730 and then again in 1733, Tolomeo was unperformed for the next 200 years, and even now, it remains one of Handel's least performed and recorded operas. Prior to this Archiv set, only a 1995 Vox recording of the work with Richard Auldon Clark leading the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra had been released in the digital era.

Joyce Di Donato and Maite Beaumont are outstanding as the devoted couple tormented by Tiridate’s abuse of power. Their flexible and agile voices are ideally displayed in the opening scenes of Act 2 – Beaumont’s sublime ‘Quando mai’ followed by Di Donato’s powerful ‘Ombra cara’. Patrizia Ciofi is suited to the moods of the Tiridate’s long-suffering wife. Dominique Labelle is the most rounded and ideally equipped Handel soprano in the cast: the music effortlessly trips off her tongue in ‘Mirerò quel vago volto’…

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.

Handel wrote Floridante in 1722 for a London audience infatuated with Italian opera. The plot, like that of so many Baroque operas, was taken from ancient history and concerns romantic liaisons thrown into turmoil by political rivalries, in this case between Persia and Tyre. Handel wrote over 50 Italian operas, and it's remarkable that he was consistently able to summon such a high level of inventiveness and inspiration when faced repeatedly with librettos that must have come to look depressingly alike in the conventions of their labyrinthine plots.

A warm welcome back for this 1977 recording of Handel’s most successful opera, which ran, in 1727, for an unprecedented 19 performances. Curtis and his team were visionary 20 years ago. Recitative is lively, declaimed rather than fully sung; vocal decorations sound spontaneous, period instruments are played with zest and polish – barely a sour note from the handful of strings; colours include a trio of oboes and bassoon and, accompanying Bowman in fine voice, a pair of horns for what Dr Burney described as ‘one of the best and most agreeable hunting songs that was ever composed’.

Berenice is one of those slightly problematic operas which seem to work better in the theatre where the gender of the characters is (usually) more obvious. Here we have a pair of low voices, one singing a man and one a woman, and a pair of high voices similarly paired. Curtis has chosen a beautifully balanced cast. But it is one where the voices are not highly distinctive so that you sometimes have to concentrate to tell whether Berenice or Alessandro is singing, or Selene or Arsace. If you listen to the opera with the libretto these sort of problems disappear.

Alan Curtis has done more than most to prove that many of Handel's 42 operas are first-rate music dramas – his Admeto, from 1977, was one of the first complete recordings of a Handel opera to feature period instruments and all voices at correct pitch without transpositions – but it is surprising to note that this is his first recording of an undisputed popular masterpiece. Rodelinda, first performed in February 1725, is a stunning work dominated by a title-heroine who remains devoted to her supposedly dead husband Bertarido and scorns the advances of his usurper Grimoaldo.