Dafne in Lauro [Import]

Fux*J.J. (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 4, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Nuova Era Internation
• ASIN: B001ERJV4E
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #687,311 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy Birthday, Dear Emperor!, February 5, 2009

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Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dafne in Lauro (Audio CD)

Johann Joseph Fux wrote Dafne in Lauro in 1714, not for public performance but as a 'theatrical ceremony' for the courtly birthday celebration of the Hapsburg Emperor Karl VI, his employer. Fux was employed, in fact, by three successive Emperors, none of whom were dissatisfied. Karl VI had every reason to be quite pleased with Fux's musical birthday gift, in the final chorus of which he is acclaimed as the "Austrian Jove." There are no mere commoners at this birthday bash; the characters in the libretto are all immortals: Apollo, Diana, Mercury, Cupid, and the self-sacrificing nymph Dafne. Fux wrote at least twenty other operas for theatrical staging. We have no good reason to think Dafne in Lauro would be the most likely choice for a modern production; it has little action and it ends with fulsome flattery, but in the meantime it's full of luscious melody and musical charm.

It was all about the music -- Baroque opera -- all about spectacular singing, melodic invention, expressive and colorful instrumentation. All of opera was all about music first, from the early Baroque to the Bel Canto, until the dismal 19th Century arrived with its bourgeois opulence and melodrama pretending to be 'verismo.' If you have a well-honed appreciation for the operas and oratorios of GF Handel on CD, I promise you'll find the same pleasures in Dafne in Lauro, and in equal measure. (The libretto included with this recording is only in Italian, but you won't care much. As I said, it's all about the music.)

Foremost among the pleasures of this performance is the singing of alto Gerard Lesne as Apollo. In 1990, when this recording was made, Lesne's voice was at the pinnacle of supple beauty, warmer and more natural than any other countertenor of our times. The Austrian archives, by the way, suggest that falsettist countertenors were the singers of preference in Vienna in Fux's day, far more highly regarded than boy sopranos or castrati. If they had the sort of musicality that Gerard Lesne displays, I can understand why.

Lesne partners expressively with soprano Lina Akerlund, Dafne, in their witty and concise recitativos. Lesne and Akerlund also have two duet arias, one in each act, that exemplify Fux's mastery of complex counterpoint and countermelody, rivaling the theoretical depth of JS Bach. Fux's reputation as a master of musical structure survived his music in the latter half of the 18th Century, and had a major impact on the works of the Haydn brothers, Mozart, and others. Sopranos Mieke van der Sluis and Silvia Piccolo contribute some delightful arias in the roles of Diana and Cupid, while tenor Martin Klietman holds his own in the minor role of Mercury. All of them sing together in two polyphony choruses demonstrating Fux's ability to write highly complex music that sounds agreeably simple.

The Clemencic Consort transforms itself into a substantial Baroque orchestra for this recording, with nine violins, three violas, cello, violone, gamba, clavicembalo, theorbo, two oboes, flauto traverso, chalumeau, and bassoon, all historically authentic original instruments played as proficiently as anything modern.