Of the many composers of Italian opera during the 18th century, few were
as important as Johann Adolph Hasse. He was well connected; studied with
Nicola Porpora and Alessandro Scarlatti, and married the famous soprano
Faustina Bordini. The latter was a wise move since she commanded twice his
fee for an opera performance and somehow retained her court opera salary
after retirement.
Although Hasse was based at Dresden, his operas were performed all over
Europe but it was through Hasse that Dresden became one of the most
important centres for music north of the Alps in the mid-18
th
century. The Italians, whose operatic style was now being substantially
represented by a north German composer, honoured him with the affectionate
name 'il caro sassone' ('the dear Saxon').
That said, the key figure in baroque opera is not Hasse, or Handel, or any
composer, but the poet Pietro Metastasio, librettist of
Siroe and
about sixty other texts, twenty-seven of them in the
opera seria
genre as here. Those libretti were set more than eight hundred times by more
than three hundred composers. He established the alternation between
recitative that carries the action forward, and the aria as a moment of
reflection. He provided the stanzas for those arias which so suited the
da capo structure, and depicted the various moral characteristics
of each role, in these dramas of moral conflict.
Siroe is a typical production, and concerns the eventual
replacement of Cosroe, a ruler no longer fit for his office, by Siroe, his
virtuous elder son. It was set by Porta, Porpora, Sarro, Vivaldi and Handel
before Hasse got round to it. Metastasio was a trained musician as well, and
there survives a long letter from him to Hasse with detailed instructions
about how to set one of his texts. It is welcome therefore that Max Emanuel
Cencic, in an intelligent note in the booklet, gives the poet due
honour.
Hasse's music is in the rococo
galant style, with its relative
simplification of earlier practice, lean textures, straightforward melodies
and functional bass lines. C.P.E Bach, according to Burney, admiringly
called Hasse a "cheat", "for in a score of twenty nominal parts he had
seldom more than three real ones in action, but with these he produced such
divine effects as must never be expected from a crowded score." His best
scores deserve revival, and not only as historical curiosities, for there is
much to enjoy in this recording of
Siroe despite the obvious
Metastasian limitations - a story more concerned with moral situations than
drama, and a string of solo
da capo arias all for high voice, not
once varied by duets or ensembles of any kind - until the obligatory brief
closing chorus.
There is some unexpected variety though, in that not all the music here is
by Hasse, or not all from
Siroe. A couple of numbers are
interpolations: Act Three scene eight is a piece of accompanied recitative
from Handel's
Siroe, and though it is followed by a Hasse aria, it
is from one of his other operas,
Tito Vespasiano. The final scene
includes a brilliant showpiece number from Graun's
Brittanico,
which allows the seconda donna to bring the house down at the close. This
was standard practice in the baroque opera house, and often driven by the
singers themselves but although these insertions are duly noted in the
track-listings, there is no explanation of why these items were selected for
these moments.
This recording follows some of the same team's award-winning 2012 Decca
version of Handel's
Alessandro, and again the star counter-tenor
Max Emanuel Cencic is the prime mover behind it, even directing the Athens
stage production of
Siroe which followed the recording sessions.
Those sessions were generous in number, and spread over twelve days. Perhaps
the idea is for that period effectively to double as rehearsal for the
staged production, which would make artistic and economic sense. It means
presumably that there is plenty of opportunity for everyone to produce the
best take of each number for the final edit. Also scheduling attendance at
sessions must be more straightforward when everyone is in town for the
staging, and there are only solos - Julia Lezhneva said in an interview that
she had valued getting some days off in that period. Certainly it has paid
off handsomely, not only because it is hard to imagine that many of these
numbers could have been better done, but also because there is such dramatic
fire in the singing, perhaps a consequence of having Cencic around as stage
director as well as a lead singer.
The cast is uniformly excellent, with those two amazing counter-tenors,
Cencic and the equally remarkable Franco Fagioli, vying for the top vocal
honours, but with the three females matching their formidable technique,
especially the glamorous sounding and highly skillful Julia Lezhneva. Her
account of that closing
aria di bravura from Graun will be the one
you will greet your friends with, saying "come in, sit down and listen to
this." Only the tenor Juan Sancho as Cosroe sounds a little stretched at the
top of the register in his arias but he is otherwise an engaging and
impressive singer. Everyone else sounds remarkably secure in the
wineglass-shattering vocal regions, and almost comfortable with the fearsome
coloratura required, even at Petrou's often ferocious speeds. It's not all
about vocal fireworks. Several of the lyrical melodies for which Hasse was
once so admired are seductively delivered also.
The period orchestra is a delight, even when pushed hard by Petrou, and
the sound is clear, clean and fairly well-balanced, if with an
understandable slight favouring of the voices. The three acts have been
squeezed on to two CDs, both over 80 minutes long. There are two booklets,
one with the full libretto and English translation, the other with two short
essays and detailed track-listings, timings and libretto page references. In
other words this is the sort of premium opera recording that has become
increasingly rare. So ignore the critics who have observed that Hasse is not
as good as Handel - who is? This work has some fascinating things in it, and
all concerned do it proud. Above all, we have here something close to the
acme of baroque opera singing in the current era.
Roy Westbrook
