la Vigna di Angelioca

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Alpha extend their series of recordings of the Mozart operas conducted by Jérémie Rhorer. After Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which received excellent international reviews (including FFFF in Télérama), here now is La clemenza di Tito. Gilles Macassar wrote in Télérama late in 2014 of ‘divinatory conducting, a cast close to the ideal . . . The last opera Mozart composed, long undervalued, closes the chapter of the Baroque and looks into the future, blazing a new trail that looks forward to the nineteenth century.’

Giovanni Bononcini composed the four part oratorio La Conversione di Maddalena for the Habsburg emperor Leopold I in 1701. The musician from Modena, at the time at the apex of his European fame, had at his disposal the best forces of the Imperial Chapel: four singers (two sopranos, a contralto and a bass) of top rate and an instrumental ensemble, limited to strings but adequately consistent to articulate a concert dialectic with tutti-concertino, including soloist pages for the violin, the cello and the viola da gamba.The extremely popular story of Mary Magdalene – a subject among the most fascinating in the Baroque spirituality of the Counter-reformation – is dealt with in original terms by the anonymous author of the libretto, who through a suggestive use of poetry “places on stage” the difficult journey of conversion of the sinner saint. Mary Magdalene is urged by the percussive incitement of her sister Marta (like in the painting of Caravaggio), who at the end of several stages of a contradicting drama plot, will succeed in winning her over to the field of Sacred Love, making vain the offers and threats of Profane Love.Bononcini reacts to the suggestions of the text by producing a score that holds a wonderful variety and a constant novelty of invention, and in which immediate heartfelt expressiveness, conspicuous vocal requirements and many nuances of timbre and harmony concur to define a sculpted profile for each character.

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Alpha extend their series of recordings of the Mozart operas conducted by Jérémie Rhorer. After Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which received excellent international reviews including FFFF in Télérama), here now is La clemenza di Tito.Gilles Macassar wrote in Télérama late in 2014 of divinatory conducting,a cast close to the ideal . . . The last opera Mozart composed, long undervalued, closes the chapter of the Baroque and looks into the future,blazing a new trail that looks forward to the nineteenth century.

Nicola Porpora was a composer who helped to turn Italian opera into the most successful and spectacular genre in Europe.

When the triumph of La cambiale di matrimonio launched the career of the composer, the profession of director did not exist. Today, it exists and thrives often to the detriment of works, which it submits to distorting "readings". So first we have the impression that Lorenzo Regazzo, in Bad Wildbad, not far from cities where the "regietheater" reigns, complies with this game by introducing into the work an additional character, that of a director directing La cambiale di matrimonio. This eccentric figure, whose silvery hair makes him look like old Liszt, and who despotically treats the troupe, is creating before our eyes. It would be more accurate to say: to try to create, because quickly the contradictory indications, the immobility imposed on the interpreters, the confusions with La Scala di seta, reveal indecision and incompetence. In spite of himself, however, the work will come to a successful conclusion, and its salvation will only come from flight, the rebellious interpreters threatening to kill him.

Flanked by a spectacular cast featuring the role debuts of Nicky Spence (named ‘Personality of the Year’ by BBC Music Magazine in 2022) and Simona Šaturová, the conductor Ben Glassberg (Music Director of the Opéra de Rouen Normandie) once again demonstrates his Mozartian temperament. This late masterpiece (written at the same time as Die Zauberflöte) places his musical genius at the service of a plot centred on the complexity of emotions, passionate love and the absurd disaster of betrayal.

Daughter of the singer and composer Giulio Caccini, Francesca Caccini (1587-after 1641) was not only a singer, harpsichordist, lutenist, guitarist, but also, without a doubt, the first woman to compose operas. Her first known public appearance dates from October 1600, when she was thirteen years old with her father and some other members of her family during the celebrations of the marriage of Henry IV and Marie de Medici. As a young adult, she pursues a full-time career as a full-time court musician with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and then with Catherine de Lorraine.