Because the very full Harmonia Mundi CD was launched, it has usually been thought to be the opera’s important recording. Nonetheless, that advice overlooks its essential flaw: a white-voiced, charmless Barbara Schlick as Cleopatra.
I as soon as learn someplace that Nelly Miricioiu was initially to carry out the position when countertenor-turned-conductor René Jacobs led a stay efficiency of GC earlier than taking it into the recording studio. Whereas little question the Romanian diva may need been extra dramatically compelling than Schlick, I ponder how positive her grasp of Handelian type would have been: her Agrippina at New York Metropolis Opera in 2007, for instance, wasn’t successful.
Jennifer Larmore, Jacobs’s Cesare, is usually brusquely spectacular however my combined emotions about her are most likely coloured by my stay Larmore experiences on the Met. As each Rosina and Cesare, her voice had nearly no affect in any respect in the home. Jacobs does have an outstanding Cornelia in Bernarda Fink and a potent Tolomeo in under-rated American countertenor Derek Lee Ragin together with the ever-delicious Dominique Visse as Nireno. Marianne Rørholm is a vigorous Sesto, however her mezzo stays relatively colorless.
Jacobs’s vibrant conducting of Concerto Köln is the recording’s best power, however since its launch we’ve heard well-conducted recordings underneath Marc Minkowski, Alan Curtis and George Petrou. Although normally his early-HIP recordings are actually usually dismissed, I retain a keenness for the GC led by Jean-Claude Malgoire regardless of the ever-hooty James Bowman within the title position. Malgoire’s women, Lynne Dawson, Guillette Laurens, and Eirian James, are very advantageous and Visse handily transitions to Tolomeo.
If I needed to advocate Cesare recordings, I need to embody the much-cut and -transposed model with Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle. I first it heard throughout sixth or seventh grade and was fully bewitched, and it triggered my lifelong ardour for Handel. Sills is magnificent and the noble but agile Treigle presents the best-possible case for taking the music down an octave, in contrast to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau within the grimly severe Karl Richter recording. I don’t even take care of Tatiana Troyanos, its Cleopatra, whose mezzo is simply too darkish and heavy for the position. Unsurprisingly, she later grew to become a splendid Cesare.
I nonetheless bear in mind first seeing the Jacobs CD—I noticed it as a brand new launch on sale throughout my weekly canvas of the classical division of Tower Data on decrease Broadway. Previous to that buy, my GC of alternative had lengthy been a 1979 broadcast from the English Nationwide Opera starring a blazing Janet Baker within the title position.
Baker’s studio audio and video recording once more with Valerie Masterson as Cleopatra made years later just isn’t practically as efficient because the stay one.
For a Cesare by Jacobs, I desire a Paris broadcast from 2008. If it’s not completely full just like the Harmonia Mundi, it brims with life and its constantly robust solid is led by the charming Cleopatra of Sandrine Piau.
I’ve been instructed that Harry Bicket and The English Live performance recorded Cesare following final yr’s tour with Christophe Dumaux and Louise Alder. The CD will function the work full relatively than with the cuts that marred their Carnegie Corridor efficiency.
This month the forces who will probably file yet one more Cesare for CD have been touring Europe. My suspicion arises from the truth that its fashionable stars, Jakub Józef Orliński and Sabine Devieilhe, are each unique Warner/Erato artists. Two of the tour’s performances that includes the wonderful Il Pomo d’Oro led by Francesco Corti have been streamed. The casts for each are an identical apart from the Cleopatra: one options Devieilhe, the opposite Piau, her alternate.
Piau, who turns 61 in June, stays a consummate Handel stylist although the voice is of course much less wealthy than beforehand. Devieilhe’s light-weight interpretation jogs my memory fairly a little bit of Battle’s. Beth Taylor sings a luxurious Cornelia and younger British mezzo Rebecca Leggett, changing the initially introduced Sophie Rennert, emphasizes Sesto’s impetuous anger.
The performances function three countertenors: Orliński and Yuriy Mynenko and Rémy Brès-Feuillet as Tolomeo and Nireno. To my ears, they sound all too comparable, a bit colorless and verging on hooty. That stated, I used to be relatively impressed by Orliński (regardless of some unorthodox ornamentation) whom I anticipated to be miscast, however I nonetheless desire a mezzo within the opera’s title position.
Christopher Corwin
Christopher Corwin started writing for parterre field in 2011 underneath the pen identify “DeCaffarrelli.” His work has additionally appeared in , The New York Occasions, Musical America, The Observer, San Francisco Classical Voice and BAMNotes. Like many, he got here to opera by way of the Saturday Met Opera broadcasts which he started listening to at age 11. His explicit enthusiasm is seventeenth and 18th century opera. Since 2015 he has curated the weekly podcast Trove Thursday on parterre field presenting stay recordings.
