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Handel : Alcina

Alcina rules over an enchanted island, its trees, rocks and animals all the bewitched forms of her discarded lovers. But Ruggiero is different. Alcina has fallen in love with the handsome knight. Can love perform the ultimate enchantment and transform Alcina herself? Or, faced with her lover’s desertion, will she once again choose vengeance and violence?

A son searching for his father; a woman searching for her fiancé; a sorceress searching for truth: Handel’s last and greatest ‘magic’ opera is an exuberant fantasy full of illusion and wizardry, but it’s also a probing psychological portrait of love in all its forms. In Alcina herself Handel creates one of the most complex and compelling heroines of his career – at once witch and woman, villain and victim.

Director Francesco Micheli brings style and sumptuous excess to Glyndebourne’s first ever staging, conducted by Jonathan Cohen.

Recorded live at Glyndebourne Opera House, Festival 2022.

The edition of Alcina used in these performances is published by Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel, edited by Siegfried Flesch. Performed by arrangement with Faber Music Ltd, London



Cast
Beth Taylor Bradamante
Alastair Miles Melisso
Soraya Mafi Morgana
Jane Archibald Alcina
Rowan Pierce Oberto
Samantha Hankey Ruggiero
Stuart Jackson Oronte
James Cleverton Astolfo
Soledad de la Hoz Dancer
Chloe Dowell Dancer
Keiko Hewitt-Teale Dancer
Bianca Hopkins Dancer
Lily Howkins Dancer
Megan Francis King Dancer
Rebecca Lee Dancer
Oihana Vesga Dancer

Jonathan Cohen Conductor
Francesco Micheli Director
Edoardo Sanchi Set Designer
Alessio Rosati Costume Designer
Mike Ashcroft Choreographer
Bruno Poet Lighting Designer
Tom Foster Harpsichord Continuo
David Bates Assistant Conductor
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Orchestra
Huw Daniel Leader Of Orchestra

The first of these discs, recorded in 1958, is now considered something of a classic, especially for the arias from Macbeth, which have probably never been bettered by anyone, except perhaps by Callas herself in the 1952 live recording of the opera from La Scala. Tu che la vanita is likewise one of the greatest performances of it I've heard, with Callas binding together its disparate elements quite beautifully. The voice is at its most stressed in the cabaletta to the Nabucco aria, but the cavatina is sung wiith great delicacy, Callas spinning out its phrases with Bellinian grace.

By the time of the second two recitals the voice had further deteriorated, though the artistry remains undimmed. There never actually was a third Verdi recital (though it had been planned) and only five of the nine arias on the last disc were approved for release by Callas. The others were released after her death.

I can understand why some find these later discs impossible to listen to. Notes above the stave are often strident and shrill and the middle register has become somewhat curdled. My reactions to them vary from one listen to another. Listening with only half an ear, I tend to notice only the vocal flaws, but if I give them my full attention, the artistry draws me in and the faults become less noticeable. In all three, her qualifications as a Verdi stylist are never in doubt.

I really enjoy this Dutchman. Excellent performance
and stereo sound. Live

They don't make them like this any more:



Flickering black and white 1954 Italian RAI studio production, but when you have Corelli and Gobbi as Canio and Tonio this is what opera is all about!

N.

Wagner: Die Walkure

Wilhelm Furtwangler, Vienna Philharmonic

I love the conducting in this recording. The singing isn’t bad by any means but it’s the conducting that really makes this recording one of my favorites.

Got this in the mail yesterday. Listening to it today.

Giasone

Francesco Cavalli

Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes
Bernard Haitink: Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1992)
Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Felicity Lott, Thomas Allen

I'm trying the Haitink first. I'm not sure why Covent Garden's orchestra has dominated this opera's discography (at least in the studio) but I have no complaints in that department. I remember Anthony Rolfe Johnson mostly from his collaborations with John Eliot Gardiner; I like his singing, at least what little of it I've heard so far. Thanks for the recommendation!

Awesome! My favorite Ring right now.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio
Wilhelm Furtwängler: Wiener Philharmoniker (October 13–17, 1953, Großer Saal, Musikverein, Wien)
Martha Mödl, Wolfgang Windgassen, Otto Edelmann, Gottlob Frick, Sena Jurinac, Rudolf Schock, Alfred Poell

Recorded a year after the famous Tristan, so after Furtwängler and Walter Legge parted ways (the producer here was Lawrance Collingwood). I gather Warner has remastered (or at least reissued) this after buying the EMI catalog, hence the fancy new cover with Warner's logo stamped on it. I know Furtwängler was usually a better artist live, and there are live Fidelios of his, but I have lately been sticking with the studio versions where they exist. It's been months since I've listened to Fidelio and I was about to reach for Klemperer's, but decided against it at the last minute. Furtwängler's Romantic approach to an essentially Classical work is out-of-fashion nowadays and I confess a general sympathy to the leaner approach, faster tempi, textural clarity, and rhythmic drive I associate with the more modern way of conducting Beethoven. Furtwängler is an exception; he has the charisma and conviction that allows me to take him at his word, and anyway I am open to artistic persuasion. It certainly helps to have a cast like this, too! But regardless of the cast, I reached for this recording because of Furtwängler. Coincidentally, this week is the sixty-ninth anniversary of this recording.

Outstanding