Scintilla

Cecilia Bartoli stars in this ebullient Zurich Opera House production of Rossini’s first French-language comedy opera described by the international press as “pure, unadulterated fun”. A BD from Zurich of the acclaimed production by masters of bel canto comedy, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier. Bartoli reminds us of her comic gifts and her naturalness as a stage actor — as well as her total sympathy with the music of Rossini. Muhai Tang conducts the historical performance ensemble La Scintilla, and the cast includes the acclaimed young Mexican tenor Javier Camarena in the title role.

Presented by the Festival della Valle d’Itria, this is the first modern-day staging of Leonardo Leo’s Neapolitan revision of Handel’s Rinaldo, a pastiche with a Mediterranean allure, which was composed in 1718 but considered lost until a few years ago. The story behind this rare opera is fascinating: the score of Handel’s masterpiece was brought illegally to Naples by the castrato singer Nicolò Grimaldi, who had performed Rinaldo in London. Once in Italy, the work was given a makeover by local composers, including Leo, who adapted it to the taste of the Neapolitan public, adding intermezzos and amusing characters. Director Giorgio Sangati has transformed Leo’s revision into a ‘ba-rock’ opera set in the 1980s, where the struggle between Christians and Turks is re-imagined as a battle between pop-rock singers (the Christians) and heavy-metal performers (the Turks). The two factions represent opposite perspectives on life and love. Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the Ensemble La Scintilla, a group of specialists in Baroque repertoire.

Presented by the Festival della Valle d’Itria, this is the first modern-day staging of Leonardo Leo’s Neapolitan revision of Handel’s Rinaldo, a pastiche with a Mediterranean allure, which was composed in 1718 but considered lost until a few years ago. The story behind this rare opera is fascinating: the score of Handel’s masterpiece was brought illegally to Naples by the castrato singer Nicolò Grimaldi, who had performed Rinaldo in London. Once in Italy, the work was given a makeover by local composers, including Leo, who adapted it to the taste of the Neapolitan public, adding intermezzos and amusing characters.

Gluck‘s wonderful but neglected 1774 opera Iphigénie en Tauride, inspired by the Greek legend, is treated with forceful and convincing simplicity in Klaus Guth‘s revolutionary production staged at the Zurich Opera House. The psychological drama in a tense atmosphere of fears and traumas is underlined by Guth‘s use of huge masks and enclosed spaces. Conductor William Christie and his typically transparent but never cold orchestral sound perfectly match the descriptive elements in Gluck’s score, while the Armenian mezzosoprano Juliette Galstian as a fabulously good Iphigénie, the leading American opera baritone Rodney Gilfry as Oreste and the deceased South African tenor Deon van der Walt as Pylade head a superb cast.

In collaboration with Giovanni Antonini, Riccardo Minasi and Maurizio Biondi, Cecilia Bartoli restores the sound and spirit of Norma in a landmark Decca recording based on the opera’s original sources. Cecilia Bartoli leads a fabulous cast in Decca’s groundbreaking new recording, which presents Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma in a form that is complete with the exquisite mix of vocal and instrumental colours that Bellini intended for his ‘tragic opera’.

An exciting young Dutch-based ensemble, performing on gut strings, brings flair and historically informed style to four little-known examples of repertoire from the dawn of the string quartet.