Apollo E Dafne [Import]

Apollo e Dafne is my favorite Handel cantata, such that I have and listen to several different recordings, but Risonanza goes right to the top of the class with this recent release. Lovely tempo choices; it moves right along, and yet nothing seems rushed. The voices are exquisite (can't believe those bottom notes), and the balance with the instruments is just right. I have enjoyed the whole Risonanza series (all are of comparable quality), but this Vol. 7 was the perfect finale for including my favorite cantata.

This is the seventh and last 'volume' of La Risonanza's multi-year project of recording all of GF Handel's Italian cantatas, that is, the cantatas the twenty-something German prodigy wrote during his mere four years in Italy before his permanent relocation in England. Those four years were unquestionably formative; many of the arias Handel wrote for these cantatas would serve as his musical safe deposit box, to be plundered for re-use in his operas and oratorios for the rest of his career. La Risonanza, directed by harpsichordist Fabio Bonizzoni, has opened the ears of the world of Baroque music lovers to the flamboyant beauties of these early cantatas, with their florid virtuosity. If you've missed any of the previous six 'volumes', in their beautiful production on the Glossa label, you will want to catch up. That's the danger of hearing just one.

The notes that come with this CD, by Carlo Vitali, recount Handel's flurry of activity in Rome, Naples, and Florence, as he enjoyed fame and pursued fortune. Vitali's notes are informative enough to constitute a bonus attraction with this recording. Virtually all of the cantatas were composed on demand for immediate performance, paid for by the 'princes' of the Church and the Habsburg rulers of Naples, at that time the third-largest city of Europe. Handel's involvement with the intellectual aristocrats of Rome, the "Arcadians" who supplied many of his libretti and in whose palaces his music was performed, has been amply documented in the book 'Handel as Orpheus.'

To my ears, however, these final Italian works suggest that Handel was chafing at the aesthetics of Arcadian Counter-Reformation moderation. That's certainly how Bonizzoni and La Risonanza performs them, not in accord with the idealized 'simplicity' advocated by the Arcadians but rather as a re-assertion of the unrestrained irrational passion of 17th C Italian Baroque. "Agrippina Condotta a Morire" -- a solo cantata for soprano and orchestra, sung on this CD by Roberta Invernizzi -- is a wildly hysterical both in words and in music as anything in the whole course of Baroque emotional excess. Invernizzi lets all the grief and fury fly in this performance, with so much emotional energy that one almost forgets to notice how magnificent her vocal technique really is. Vital describes the libretto as a "whirlpool of conflicting attitudes." Invernizzi's performance of it is indeed a whirlpool of timbres and phrasings.

The cantata for basso and orchestra "Cuopre Talvolta il Cielo" is literally just as tempestuous. In fact, the libretto portrays a thunder storm, comparing its violence to the passions of a spurned lover. The text is certainly 'idealized' enough to meet Arcadian expectations, but Handel's music is affectively 'over the edge.' There's some evidence that it was written for a specific basso in Naples, the priest Domenico Manna, a singer in the Habsburg chapel in Vienna and Naples, and it's quite likely that Manna also sang the roles of Apollo and Polifemo in other Italian compositions by Handel. Soloistic basso parts are rare in Handel's Italian works. Manna must have had a huge range, two octaves and a fifth, and incredible agility for a basso, and his prowess surely inspired Handel's artistry.

"Apollo e Dafne" is one of Handel's most often performed Italian works in modern times. There's a fine CD of it, with Thomas Hampson singing Apollo, conducted by Nikolas Harnoncourt, recorded in the last century. (Ancient Early Music!). The story comes from Ovid, of Apollo's violent lust for the nymph Daphne, who escapes his clutches by transforming into a laurel tree. Apollo is a brute, no question of it, as unable to regulate his arrogance as any talk-show ranter on Fox News. Basso Thomas Bauer sings the role with extroverted bluster yet beautifully attuned phrasing and resonance. Roberta Invernizzi, as Dafne, responds with lyrical charm. This must have been a composition of which Handel was especially proud, since he recycled much of it in his later works. It's a lengthy cantata, almost a mini-opera, with lively orchestral scoring for strings and oboes.

Just as Handel stretched the limits of the Arcadian aesthetic in these final Italian cantatas, I also suspect that Fabio Bonizzoni has deliberately sought to challenge the 'rubric' of historically-informed baroque performance practice, moving beyond the assumptions thereof. This ultimate recording is significantly broader and more Dionysian in affect than any of the previous six volumes. You'll hear the difference most in basso Furio Zanasi's performance of Cuopre Talvolta. Zanasi has a familiar voice; he's sung not only with La Risonanza but with nearly every top-drawer vocal ensemble in Italy. But he's never sounded like this before! In this performance, he rolls his "rrrr"s and flaunts his 'squillo' like a Neapolitan singing Verdi at La Scala! And Bonizzoni moderates his tempi to allow such melodramatic mannerisms. I'm sure some long-time advocates of HIPP will hear this performance as a provocation, but Bonizzoni isn't alone in his attempt to 'get past' historical authenticity. Conductors Emmanuele Haim and Christina Pluhar have been pushing the edges for a decade. Zanasi's and Bonizzoni's interpretation of Cuopre Talvolta is EXAGGERATED! I would hate to hear it imitated widely. But it's also a lot of fun for the ears. It has the 'authenticity' of excellent musicianship.

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