See www.naiveclassique.com
Sara Mingardo has been
creating quite a stir in baroque circles
but this is my first chance to catch
up with her. In one sense she may be
considered a "typical" baroque
singer, in the sense that she uses a
completely straight vocal production,
from which vibrato has been rigorously
excluded, and cultivates a somewhat
plangent, nasal sound, with the result
that a casual listener might suppose
he was listening to a counter-tenor.
She also makes considerable use of chest
tones from C downward, which seems a
little strange for a contralto (who
might be expected to get down to at
least an A before engaging the chest
register); it is probable, though, that
she is doing this from a conviction
that it is historically correct, rather
than because she has to. The stimulating
essay in the booklet by Olivier Rouvière,
which would be worth acquiring even
if the record were not, goes into the
question of sex and the human voice,
instancing operas such as Hasse’s "Marc’Antonio
e Cleopatra" in which the male
part was sung by a woman and the female
part by a man and advancing the view
that the rigid association of certain
voice-types with men or women just didn’t
exist until the 19th Century.
All this is very fascinating,
but what Mingardo has to offer is more
fascinating still. While plenty of other
singers have offered a vocal production
such as that described above, the tendency
has been to produce a chaste, virginally-pure
style of interpretation, the vague idea
at the back of people’s heads being
that since whopping great operatic vibrato
goes along with emotional wallow, the
lack of the one automatically entails
the lack of the other. Sara Mingardo
clearly does not agree and sees no reason
to hide her passionately Italian nature,
no doubt arguing that there is no reason
why Italians of the 17th
and early 18th centuries
should have been any less creatures
of flesh and blood than those of today.
(Incidentally, Handel has not strayed
into the collection by mistake since
this work belongs to his period spent
in Italy, although he already shows
an inclination to paint with a broader
brush than the native composers). So
right from the opening lullaby by Tarquinio
Merula, Mingardo invokes a gamut of
emotions, with even the odd gasp or
sob or, on a few long, sustained notes,
something resembling vibrato, such as
one might expect in the performance
of Mascagni or Cilea. Or, to put it
another way, she combines a Callas-like
emotional commitment with a baroque
style of vocal production. The result
is so surprising that the music almost
takes on a strange, oriental colour,
yet the results are also extraordinarily
convincing and do not at all contradict
any of the historical evidence we have
as to how this music was performed.
Incidentally, the duet with Monica Bacelli
provides an interesting comparison with
the type of virginal, dulcet tones we
tend to think of as "normal"
in baroque singing.
A good number of the
pieces in the earlier part of the programme
are slow, but I wonder if this was not
done deliberately just to show how much
variety Mingardo can get out of them,
and when the fireworks come they go
up like a rocket! The last section of
the Vivaldi (a superb piece which loses
nothing by being placed after Handel)
reveals an infallible technique combined
with great rhythmic verve.
The billing "Concerto
Italiano" suggests a small orchestra
but only five players are used - two
violins (which only appear occasionally),
a cello, a theorbo and a harpsichord,
the last two being kept extremely busy
in some elaborate realizations of the
figured bass. Lacking a score, I have
no idea whether the furious activity
unleashed in the accompaniment as the
Vivaldi’s steersman is tossed by the
waves was actually written like that
or whether it is a very imaginative
piece of work by Alessandrini, and I
should love to know. In any case, it
is strange how much lusher and more
colourful baroque music can sound on
these small, authentic groups than it
used to in the days when we used medium-sized
string orchestras.
I feel that anyone
at all interested in baroque music should
give this a hearing and I cannot imagine
them finding it less than fascinating
and thrilling.
Christopher Howell
Sara Mingardo (contralto), Monica Bacelli
(mezzo-soprano)* 