Handel - Rodrigo / Banditelli, Piau, Fedi, Müller, Invernizzi, Calvi, Il Complesso Barocco, Curtis [Import]

George Frideric Handel (Composer), Alan Curtis (Conductor), Il Complesso Barocco (Orchestra), Gloria Banditelli (Performer), Sandrine Piau (Performer), Elena Cecchi Fedi (Performer), Rufus Muller (Performer), Roberta Invernizzi (Performer), Catarina Calvi (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Gloria Banditelli, Sandrine Piau, Elena Cecchi Fedi, Rufus Muller, Roberta Invernizzi, et al.
• Orchestra: Il Complesso Barocco
• Conductor: Alan Curtis
• Composer: George Frideric Handel
• Audio CD (December 23, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Virgin Classics
• ASIN: B00000J29L
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,722 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Rodrigo: Ouverture

2. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 1 - Recitativo accompagnato: Ah mostro, ah furia (Florinda, Rodrigo)

3. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 1 - Aria: Occhi neri (Rodrigo)

4. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 2 - Recitativo: E tal mi lascia? (Florinda)

5. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 2 - Aria: Pugneran con noi le stelle (Florida)

6. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 3 - Aria: Nasce il sol, e l'aura vola (Esilena)

7. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 3 - Recitativo: Reina, in sì bel dì (Fernando, Esilena)

8. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 3 - Aria: Agitata da fiato incostante (Fernando)

9. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 4 - Recitativo: Esilena? Mio re (Rodrigo, Esilena)

10. Rodrigo: Atto Primo - Scena 5 - Aria: Dell'Ibera al soglio invitto (Giuliano)

See all 34 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 4 - Recitativo: Baldanzosa pietà (Florinda)

2. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 4 - Aria: Fredde ceneri d'amor (Florinda)

3. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 5 - Aria: Siete assai superbe, o stelle (Rodrigo)

4. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 6 - Recitativo: Signor, tutte rinchiuse (Esilena, Rodrigo)

5. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 6 - Aria: Empio fato, e fiera sorte (Esilena)

6. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 7 - Recitativo: Signor, non sempre cieca (Fernando, Rodrigo, Giuliano)

7. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 7 - Aria: Là ti sfido a fiera battaglia (Giuliano)

8. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 8 - Recitativo: Rodrigo, se muor Giuliano (Esilena, Fernando, Rodrigo)

9. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 8 - Aria: Dopo i nembi, e le procelle (Fernando)

10. Rodrigo: Atto Secondo - Scena 9 - Recitativo: Amato sposo, e chi sa mai (Esilena, Rodrigo)

See all 39 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Rodrigo wasn't Handel's very first opera (that was Almira), but it was the first one he wrote after arriving in Italy--and the first one that seems fully mature, with no hint of juvenilia. (He was all of 22 when he wrote it). Already the composer had begun his habit of recycling music from earlier works; dedicated Handel fans will recognize plenty of material from (among others) Aminta e Fillide, Tirsi, Clori e Fileno, and the Carmelite Vespers music. Rodrigo's plot has all the martial and amorous conflict, revenge, and forgiveness of any self-respecting opera seria, but the narrative is less convoluted than most; more important, it's full of powerful and credible human emotion--emotion that Handel illustrates with consistently fine music. (There's none of the first-act doldrums that afflict some of Handel's other operas and oratorios.)

Alan Curtis has assembled an unusually good cast: Caterina Calvi is an excellent--and all too rare--Handel contralto, with admirable flexibility, firm low notes and no matronly quality to the voice; tenor Rufus Müller makes a convincingly courageous and egotistical rebel nobleman, yet retains some of the sweet tone that made him a stand-out member of the Tallis Scholars in earlier years. The three sopranos--Elena Cecchi Fedi as the furious victim of seduction, Sandrine Piau as the virtuous queen, and Roberta Invernizzi as a rebellious young noble--are all exemplary. Then there's magnificent mezzo Gloria Banditelli: her singing is focused and flexible enough to fit right in with period instruments, with a sound both pure and heroic enough to be credible in a heroic castrato role. Curtis has cut a good bit of recitative (included, shown in italics, in the booklet), but then Handel often did the same thing. Moreover, he paces the performance well--sometimes one misses the spark that, say, Marc Minkowski and Paul McCreesh ignite throughout their best Handel performances, but the energy and theatrical involvement never flag. --Matthew Westphal

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most for your money with Handel's "Rodrigo", June 22, 1999

By 

Andrew Baumann (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Handel - Rodrigo / Banditelli, Piau, Fedi, Müller, Invernizzi, Calvi, Il Complesso Barocco, Curtis (Audio CD)

The best thing about this new recording of one of Handel's early operas is that great pains were clearly taken to fit the whole opera onto two well-filled CDs (each full-price, but containing nearly 80 minutues of music). To do this, Alan Curtis (the conductor) cut some of the lengthy recitative -- which is nevertheless provided in the libretto, indicated by italic type, and will therefore satisfy even Handel "completists" who can still save the cost of an extra CD. In the program notes, Curtis makes an excellent case for his reconstruction of the opera, which until recently was lacking its beginning, part of its middle, and its end. These have been restored partly by means of a recently discovered manuscript, and partly by Curtis himself, who composed the first couple of recitatives in the Baroque style (though, admittedly, not necessarily in the style of Handel) and borrowed a duet from another opera to replace a duet that was, to judge from the score, evidently missing. But Curtis argues convincingly enough that this duet was originally part of "Rodrigo" (primarily on the basis of the duet's key and the fact that the two operas are roughly contemporary).

The only thing that might dissuade one from absolutely loving this recording is that Handel reused much of the music in other of his compositions. Since Handel lovers relish every new aria they hear, it may be sometimes disappointing that some of the melodies already sound familiar from other operas or concerti grossi. But rarely, if ever, did Handel plagiarize his own music exactly; each borrowed melody was reworked to some extent, so the music is still fresh and new.

As for the quality of the recording itself, it is first rate and vies with other period-instrument performances. The instrumentation is spare and intimate, the recording clear and vivid. The singing is impeccable. This Handel lover looks forward to further recordings of Handel's operas by Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely beautiful music, January 12, 2005

By 

Bruce Bogin (rural France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Handel - Rodrigo / Banditelli, Piau, Fedi, Müller, Invernizzi, Calvi, Il Complesso Barocco, Curtis (Audio CD)

I love Baroque music, particularly vocal and particularly Handel operas and oratorios. I don't care much about technicalities or about story lines. This is beautiful music written by the 22 year old Handel. It includes five of the most beautiful female voices imaginable and an excellent tenor. If you like to listen to beautiful music, buy this set. You will not be disappointed. Alan Curtis the director, who also filled out some of the missing music, should be awarded a medal for this one. (Try his rendition of Vivaldi's Giustino as well.) The discussion of the opera by Anthony Hicks and the note by Mr. Curtis in the booklet are excellent. The only think missing are photos of the singers. I happen to know that the women are as beautiful as their voices. Buy it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IF I WERE A SOPRANO..., July 1, 2009

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Handel - Rodrigo / Banditelli, Piau, Fedi, Müller, Invernizzi, Calvi, Il Complesso Barocco, Curtis (Audio CD)

...I'd think twice before sharing a stage or a CD with Sandrine Piau. She's too good. She makes "it" sound effortless, and that of course is what makes her so good. In this performance of Handel's first opera in Italy, Piau outshines four of the most skillful women stars in the heavens of Baroque music - Gloria Banditelli, Elena Cecchi Fedi, Caterina Calvi, and Roberta Invernizzi. It helps, one must acknowledge, that the arias assigned to `Esilena' - Piau's role - are the loveliest and most virtuosic of the piece. Esilena's aria at the end of Act 1 - Per dar pregio all'amor mio - with pyrotechnic violin obbligato, should be imprinted on titanium and launched in the the next intergalactic probe, to give evidence that we homosaps were not such a crude, clumsy species, despite our propensity to foul our planet.

Rodrigo was first performed in Florence in 1707. It was not Handel's first opera; he had composed at least two for the stage in Hamburg and, with his usual economy, he recycled several arias from those works for his Italian debut. If Rodrigo has a weakness, it's that there's too much recitativo, too many words to tell its convoluted story of betrayal, jealousy, and vengeance. Actually, the verse libretto by Francesco Silvani is highly refined poetry, worth reading In Italian if you can, but it was clearly too `explicit' for the operatic stage. Handel cut portions of it before the premiere and again before the second performance, and Alan Curtis has cut even more of it in his reconstruction for this recording. The cut portions of Silvani's text are included with this performance, printed in italics. One previous reviewer, obviously not a true Baroquenik, has citicized the inclusion of any recitativo at all. That wouldn't please me; recitativo is beautiful in its own manner, and is necessary in this opera to set the table for the highly-flavored dishes called arias.

The young German composer was obviously sensitive to the new aesthetic fashions of his aristocratic/intellectual patrons in Rome and Florence, an aesthetic that called for purity of genre. Unlike most stage works of the previous century, Rodrigo is all "opera seria", with no hint of commedia. The older Apollonian detachment from human frailties -- as shown in Monteverdi's Poppea, for instance -- is replaced by Dionysian passion and immediacy. Jealousy is not to be exhibited here, but to be experienced. There is no prologue on Olympus, and no deities intervene in Handel's human drama.

As the announcers say in baseball, when a pitcher dominates a hitter, Alan Curtis has "ownage" on Handel's operas. His are the reconstructed performing scores used by most ensembles, and his are the reigning conceptions of the music. His ensemble, Il Complesso Barocco, is unmatched in consistent instrumental polish. My only wish would be that more of Curtis's Handel were available on DVD as fully staged performances. As it is, Curtis's opera CDs are among the very few that I would choose to hear only, in preference to DVDs of stagings by other conductors.

This recording has been reissued in the Brilliant Classics bargain box of recordings by Il Complesso Barocco. The other five operas in the box are:

RADAMISTO - 3 CDs 2005, with Zachary Stains, Dominique Labelle, Joyce DiDonato
ADMETO - 3 CDs 1978, with René Jacobs, James Bowman, Max von Egmond
FERNANDO - 2 CDs 2007, with Lawrence Zazzo, Max Cencic, Antonio Abete
ARMINIO - 2 CDs 2001, with Vivica Genoux, Dominique Labelle, Riccardo Ristori
DEIDAMIA - 3 CDs 2003, with Simone Kermes, Anna Bonitatibus, Furio Zanassi