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George Frideric
HANDEL (1685–1759) Fernando, Re di Castiglia (1732) [149.19]
Fernando – Lawrence
Zazzo (counter-tenor)
Elvida – Veronica Cangemi (soprano)
Dionisio – Filippo Adami(tenor)
Isabella – Marianne Pizzolato (mezzo)
Alfonso – Neal Banerjee (counter-tenor)
Sancio – Max Emanuel Cencic (counter-tenor)
Altomaro – Antonio Abete (bass)
Il Complesso Barocco/Alan Curtis
rec. 20-28 April 2005, Tonhalle, St. Gallen, Switzerland VIRGIN
CLASSICS 3654832 [71.53 + 77.26]
Handel's Fernando, Re di Castiglia is
not a familiar name in the Handel canon. Essentially it is
the opera Sosarme,
Re di Medea with the location and character
names altered, 130 extra bars of recitative, and the plotline
otherwise
completely unchanged.
For his 1731-32 opera season at the King’s Theatre Handel
wrote two new operas, Ezio -
setting a libretto by Metastasio - and a new opera based
on Salvi’s libretto for Dionisio, Re di Portogallo. The company for which Handel wrote these
had undergone something of a change; his prime castrato,
Senesino, remained as did his prima donna, Strada, and the
contralto Merighi. Others had left and were replaced by a
group of singers new to the London stage. This group included
Pinnacci, one of the finest tenors to work for Handel, and
the great bass, Montagnana.
Metastasio’s libretto for Ezio had a considerable amount of recitative. Though Handel made substantial
cuts, the opera was not popular and ran for only five performances.
At the time of Ezio’s failure, Handel was two-thirds of the
way through his opera based on Salvi’s Dionisio, Re di Portogallo; That opera was to be called Fernando, Re di Castiglia. As a reaction to Ezio’sfailure,
Handel cut the recitative of the new opera even further,
renamed it Sosarme, Re di Medea, and renamed most of the characters.
The decision to cut the recitative even further is understandable.
London audiences could be famously intolerant of long stretches
of recitative. When transforming Fernando into Sosarme,
Handel removed a further 134 bars of recitative, the majority
from Act 1. As to why the opera was renamed and
relocated, Winton Dean has speculated that someone must have
warned Handel that an opera which portrayed Portugal in an
unfavourable light would not sit well with King George as
Portugal was Britain’s oldest ally.
The renaming and relocating of the opera had virtually
no effect on the plot, but the removal of the recitative
left some of the more complex plotting rather obscured. Handel
completed Act 3 of the opera as Sosarme.
The opera is musically strong and Alan Curtis has taken
the decision to restore as much as possible of the original
recitative. Playing it in its original location with the
original character names has no effect on the drama, but
helps to differentiate between the two versions.
The main problem with this restoration is that Curtis
has been able to restore 100 bars to Act 1 and 34 to Act
2, but nothing to Act 3 as Handel set this after his final
set of cuts to the recitative. This means that the opera,
as performed by Curtis, is possibly a little unbalanced as
compared to what Handel was intending, before the failure
of Ezio, with Act 1 in particular being
too long for the rest of the opera. But his restoration does
give us a glimpse
of the fuller opera which Handel was contemplating, with
more detail to the complex plotting. Also, Handel’s final
revisions were inevitably very rushed and some details, such
as the fuller version of Alfonso’s accompanied recitative
in Act 1, are better in the original version.
The plot, such as it is, is the sort of complex dynastic
quarrel beloved of opera seria writers. Such plots enabled
the librettist to put his characters into a series of strong
situations; it is these situations that matter and neither
librettist, nor composer, seemed to worry if the way the
characters got there was a little contrived.
Dionisio, King of Portugal is struggling with a rebellion
by his eldest son, Alfonso, with Dionisio besieging the city
of Coimbra which is held by the rebels. Alfonso is jealous
of Dionisio’s natural son, Sancio, but this jealousy has
been fanned by the evil machinations of Dionisio’s counsellor,
Altomaro. Dionisio’s daughter, Elvida, is betrothed to Fernando,
King of Castile, but the two are prevented from meeting by
the struggle. Elvida and her mother, Isabella, are held inside
the Royal palace in Coimbra. Eventually Alfonso and Dionisio
resolve to meet in single combat, but this is foiled by Fernando
and all ends satisfactorily.
Sosarme has not been that strongly served on
disc and Alan Curtis’s new recording
would have been welcome, no matter what version he used.
With the expansion of the recitative in the new version,
it is heartening to report that the cast on this new version
delivers the recitative in a highly dramatic and involving
manner. For anyone following the plot in detail, we get a
vividly portrayed drama played out before us. Even if you
don’t follow all the libretto, then the results are highly
involving.
When it comes to the detail of individual vocal performances,
Curtis’s cast are a little more variable. Though overall
the results are creditable, regrettably these forces are
not out of the topmost drawer among those casts with whom
Curtis has worked.
In the Senesino role of Fernando, Lawrence Zazzo - rapidly
becoming the Handel counter-tenor de nos jours - is
suitably dramatic. His more martial passage-work is apt to
turn into bluster but in the more lyric passages, Zazzo spins
a lovely line. He and Elvida (Veronica Cangemi) share two
lovely duets. The opera is notable for having three duets.
Zazzo can be quite generous with his use of vibrato but it
is never overpowering and he retains a good sense of line.
Cangemi is also adept at spinning long lines and floating
some wonderful high notes. There are moments when her passage-work
sounds smudged and in her final aria there are hints of her
top being squeezed. Cangemi also gets a strong accompagnato
at the beginning of Act 2 when her lovely long soprano line
is supported by a jagged string accompaniment.
Neither Cangemi nor Zazzo are perfect but at their best,
both are fine talents displayed in a suitably dramatic manner.
Two more of the cast almost equal Zazzo and Cangemi.
As Altomaro, Antonio Abete, displays a fine, focused baritone
voice, which is attractively grainy and suitably expressive.
All he really lacks are the resonant low notes required of
him in his opening aria. Montagnana, the original Altomaro
had a very wide range. Marianna Pizzolato is a trifle more
variable as Isabella (Elvida’s mother and Dionisio’s wife).
At her best she is a fine dramatic singer, with some good
focused tone, fine line and crisp passage-work, but she does
not always manage to stick to this high standard. She and
Alfonso (Neal Banerjee) share a duet at the opening of Act
2 which is one of Handel’s rarer duets of opposition, with
the two singers portraying complementary points of view.
Neither tenor is really in the same class. Filippo Adami,
as Dionisio, has a regrettably dry-sounding voice with a
less than ideal grainy tone. Technically he is perfectly
OK, but fails to ignite dramatically; he just does not bring
one Handel’s more challenging tenor parts to life. Neal Banerjee
as Alfonso is inclined to bluster and fails to provide a
good feel for the musical line.
As Sancio, Max Emanuel Cencic has a markedly feminine
tone with a tight vibrato; he is undoubtedly a strongly dramatic
singer though his passage-work is not ideal.
Curtis and his group, Il Complesso Barocco, give their
usual admirable support. In addition to the overture, the
group also get a brief spotlight in the Act 2 military sinfonia
and the sinfonia which opens Act 3. The groups also contributes
a fine violin solo in Isabella’s final aria.
Alan Curtis and his cast give a strong, creditable performance
that falls down mainly on detail. A couple of cast changes
to strengthen the cast would have turned this from a recommendable,
but not ideal performance, into one that would have been
a serious contender.
If
you are looking for a disc of perfect Handel singing, then
look elsewhere, but if you want a highly dramatic presentation
of one of Handel’s more underrated operas then look no further.
Robert
Hugill
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