The linking theme for this recording is the archetypal enchanted forest,
a speciality of the renaissance epics of Boiardo, Tasso and Ariosto
which inspired Spenser’s
Faerie Queene and which baroque
composers copiously mined for their operas. The other influence, actually
more important for these pieces, despite the title, is Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, especially the legend of Daphne, pursued with
amorous intention and against her will by Apollo, on whose plight the
gods took pity and transformed her into a laurel tree.
I suppose we had to have multiple photographs of Anna Prohaska on the
cover and inside the booklet, swooning in the act of transformation
to make the CD look more appealing, though the days when one could browse
in a record store and be attracted by the cover are, for most of us,
long gone. One can imagine a smaller, more specialised label using Pollaiulo’s
Apollo and Daphne in which the god tries to seize the nymph in
the very act of her transformation. Or, on a related theme, Botticelli’s
La Primavera on the cover; the nymph Chloris appears there twice,
first being pursued by Zephyrus and then metamorphosed into the embodiment
of Spring.
So DG have gone for popular appeal to sell what is essentially a recording
for a niche market, but it’s what’s on the recording that
matters and here the first thing that I noticed was that whoever chose
the programme wisely decided to eschew the obvious - even the excerpts
from Handel’s
Alcina and
Rinaldo are not the usual
suspects. His pastiche opera
Giove in Argo, from which track
2 is taken,
has only recently received its first recording from
Il Complesso Barocco on Virgin - review forthcoming. The only item that
receives regular airings - and that usually in a complete Monteverdi
programme - is the closing
Lamento della Ninfa.
Though this is not by any means Anna Prohaska’s first venture
into the baroque repertoire, her previous outings on record include
Berg’s
Lulu Suite, about as far removed from the music
here as one could imagine, though I suppose that her appearance as a
dryad in
Rusalka (Orfeo) was a sort of preparation for the nymphery
here. John Quinn praised her vocal powers in Berg, though admitting
to a failure to connect with the music to which I must also plead guilty.
Closer to the repertoire on the new CD, José M Iruzun thought
her unsuited to the role of Poppea in a production of Handel’s
Agrippina -
review
- but again praised her voice. I find myself in a similar position:
there’s no doubting the beautiful quality of the singing and the
high quality of the accompaniment, but there’s sometimes too little
sense of differentiation among the different roles, just an all-purpose
baroque sound which becomes a little tiring after a while. I don’t
wish to make it a major issue, however; the singing is as enchanting
as the CD’s title suggest.
It helps that Prohaska essays some convincing ornamentation and that
she is joined by Samuel Boden and Ashley Riches in
Mark how readily
each pliant string (track 4) and by the same two singers plus Thomas
Walker in the final
Lamento della ninfa (track 15) but there’s
a large expanse of just soprano plus accompaniment inbetween. Since
Prohaska professes in the booklet notes to love ensemble singing, it’s
a shame that there isn’t more of it here, though it’s mainly
the male voices in
Lamento that let the side down slightly by
being a shade less intense than would have been ideal.
It was wise to end with the
Lamento della ninfa; it’s the
most dramatic piece here and it receives a very good dramatic performance.
I wouldn’t, however, prefer it to the wonderful performance by
Concerto Italiano/Rinaldo Alessandrini (Naïve/Opus111), available
on a single CD,
Lamento della Ninfa and other Madrigals from
Book 8 (OP30465) or on a 3-CD set (OP30435: Recording of the Month -
review).
MDT and ArkivMusic still list this on CD and Amazon.co.uk are re-stocking
in late June 2013, but it’s out of stock from some other dealers
and may be in short supply; if you can’t find it, it’s available
in mp3 or lossless flac from
eclassical.com
or from
classicsonline.com
in mp3 only.
The lament was a form which Monteverdi made all his own and, while the
quality of this
Lamento is clear from the new recording, you
need to turn to Alessandrini’s team for its full power without
in any way forcing or over-emphasising the music. That’s judging
the new recording by the highest standards, however; taken in context,
I don’t think that listeners will be disappointed.
While Prohaska and her team run Alessandrini a close second, they offer
a mystery bonus at the end. After the
Lamento, which takes just
over six minutes, there’s an unidentified short madrigal in which
Prohaska seems to be duetting with herself. I can’t identify it
because the words are not in the booklet and clarity of diction is not
one of the strong points of this recording; my guess would be Thomas
Morley. Indeed, it may well have been included on my review copy by
mistake; I see that Amazon and others give a time of 6:08 for the final
track and an overall timing of 68:32, which suggests that the ‘bonus’
has been omitted. It’s a shame - I rather liked it. The font used
on the cover of the finished product is also different from that on
my review copy.
I’ve mentioned diction as not being of the clearest but it’s
only a problem in Purcell’s
Mark how each plaint. It’s
not that Prohaska’s English pronunciation is a problem - I understand
that one of her parents is English - but after a very clearly enunciated
Mark, mark, how readily, she tends to run the syllables together
here. It’s partly Purcell’s librettist’s fault for
not considering the singer, but the soprano on a Naxos recording conducted
by Robin Glenton (8.553444), though her voice is no match for Prohaska’s,
manages it without problem, not to mention the King’s Consort
on the Hyperion Complete Odes (CDS44031/8 -
review
and
review).
For all my minor reservations - and they don’t seem to have troubled
the two other reviewers whose take on this recording came my way just
as I was closing my write-up - this CD presents an enjoyable programme
of mostly lesser-known baroque arias, very attractively sung and well
accompanied. The recording is good - one of the venues a little more
reverberant than the other - and if the notes in the booklet are a little
fanciful at times, they are also informative. Now I’m tempted
to go for her earlier, more varied recital
Sirène - with
Eric Schneider, piano, music from Dowland to Mahler and points between,
477 9463.
Brian Wilson
