CD, стоящие на полке рядом : Classics (Opera)      

Farnace, opera in 3 acts, RV 711 (Фарнак)

Синопсис (mymb-en)

Libretto (it)(pdf)

About (en,wiki)

О произведении (ru,wiki)

Coro del Teatro de la Zarzuela

Furio Zanasi, baryton (Farnace) - Sara Mingardo, contralto (Tamiri) - Adriana Fernandez, soprano (Berenice) - Gloria Banditelli, soprano / contralto (Selinda) - Cinzia Forte, soprano (Gilade) - Fulvio Bettini, mezzo-soprano (Aquilio) - Sonia Prina, mezzo-soprano (Pompeo)

Farnace was apparently one of Vivaldi's favorite operas, because he mounted numerous productions in various cities, and wrote six versions of the score, more than of any of his other operas. The conventions of operatic vocal characterizations that came to be standard - higher voices in the sympathetic roles, and lower voices in villainous roles - had not yet been established, and Farnace features a baritone and contralto in the heroic roles, with a soprano as the villain. Soprano Adriana Fernandez shines as the wicked Berenice, who is redeemed at the very last minute. She has a full, creamy voice that she deploys appealing agility and warmth. As Tamira, contralto Sara Mingardo sings with power, authority, and deep feeling. In the title role, baritone Furio Zanasi is appropriately heroic, with a rich, refined timbre and the expressive depth to create sympathy for the conflicted protagonist, but he doesn't always have the necessary strength at the bottom of his range. One of his arias, the lyrical and poignant "Gelido in ogni vena," is among the composer's loveliest creations.

The album includes several arias by Francesco Corselli that were inserted in a 1739 performance of the opera in Madrid. The recording uses the 1731 revision of the score, the one that Vivaldi had in his possession at his death. Jordi Savall leads his ensemble, Le Concert des Nations, and the Coro del Teatro de la Zarzuela in a sensitive reading of the score. Although the recording was made from live performances, Savall doesn't succeed in creating the kind of dramatic momentum that makes this repertoire come alive. The result can't be faulted for lack of musical polish or sophistication, but apart from some individual arias, Savall and his forces don't generate much heat. The sound is obviously that of a live performance, with some audience and stage noise, and varying vocal dynamics as the singers move around the stage.

All Music Guide

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AN UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF FARNACE

The present recording of Vivaldi's opera Farnace is the first complete recording, including all the arias and choruses from the 1731 version, as well as restoring Tamiri's recitativo accompagnato from the 1738 version. For historical and conceptual reasons, each of the three acts is preceded by different examples from Corselli's version of the opera, which was presented in Madrid in 1738. The entire version is built around a selection of the best interpretations from the last two performances recorded live at Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, on 26 and 28 October, 2001. It should therefore be pointed out that any differences of sound or mood which may occasionally seem to affect the singing, or give the impression of the singers being further away, are due to the singers' position on the stage. Any small inconvenience arising from the recording of a live stage performance is amply compensated for by the great spontaneity of the Recitatives and the sincerity of feeling in the Arias, in which the singers truly improvise some ornamentations in the da capo sections of the Arias in question.

An opera is always an all-round spectacle, in which text, declamation, music, song, dance and theatre enter into a dialogue and are united in their one common objective: to invite us to dream by drawing us into a Utopian world, one which is always full of magic, beauty and emotion.

-Jordi Savall

Madrid, October, 2001

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Jordi Savall conducting Vivaldi? If the initial reaction is one of mild surprise, it has to be recalled that he is a musician who has long demonstrated outstanding versatility, so it is perhaps not so unexpected that he should turn his attention to the Venetian master. And it seems somehow typical of Savall's approach to music that he should make his Vivaldi debut not in a collection of concertos, but with a previously unrecorded opera. Not content with that, he has provided further interest by allowing us to compare extracts from a later setting of the same libretto by Francesco Corselli, a French-born composer whose Farnace was first given in Madrid in 1739, some dozen years after Vivaldi's.

When I phoned Savall at his Barcelona office, the first question I put to him was to ask what had drawn him to Farnace in particular. "The Farnace project arose because I was asked by the Spanish government's cultural consortium set up to celebrate the third millennium to conduct an opera based on this libretto by Luccini. It was a libretto that had been set by many composers, some 40 different versions in all. I decided to do the Vivaldi with the version by Corselli because it combined an international setting with something that had local connections with Madrid. I had studied a number of the scores of Farnace operas and also found that the Corselli was the one that fitted in best with Vivaldi. I have not conducted Vivaldi before partly because so many other people do Vivaldi, and also because I'm a viola da gamba player, so Vivaldi doesn't normally play a major part in my life! But nobody has previously done this piece, and after studying the score I thought it well worth performing."

I tell Savall that one of the things that struck me forcibly was how strong the opera is dramatically. "Yes, it is very well and carefully constructed, both as to the vocal and the orchestral writing, which displays a rich variety of harmony. The libretto is typical of the Baroque in the way its sets up powerful dramatic situations-in this case a father who feels he must have his son killed. In this way, a composer was given the means to express strong emotions. But the ending is not very convincing, because there you have a woman (Berenice) who has spent the entire opera breathing vengeance suddenly becoming understanding." "That surely," I suggest, "is also part of typical Baroque convention, the demand for the lieto fine, or happy ending that today frequently appears contrived." "Yes, indeed. It represents a return to normality after all the high drama of tragedy and strong emotions."

No stronger emotions are released than those of Farnace in his act II aria "Gelido in ogni vena," the point at which he believes his young son to be dead. Savall had an interesting point to make about such highly emotive arias. "I find that the written ornaments in such an aria are like weeping-their purpose is much more than purely decorative. They have a very strong and clear function. I discovered this during our work on the opera, where in the context of the emotional situation this kind of interpretation makes sense of the music." Just how much sense can be heard in Furio Zanassi's highly effective singing of the aria in question (disc 2, tr. 10), about which more in the review that follows.

full text here:www.dilettantemusic.com/reviews/editorial/antonio-vivaldi-farnace