Customer Reviews

Nicola Porpora: Orlando

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It seems like the treasure-trove of Baroque opera will never end. Nicola Porpora was an almost exact contemporary of Handel, and a worthy rival from the evidence of this recording. This is a very satisfying performance of a wonderful opera. The quality of the writing is very high; none of this would be out of place in an opera by Handel. The recitatives are if anything more dramatic and striking than Handel's, the accompanied recitatives full of invention, and the arias full of beauty. There is perhaps a lack of vocal pyrotechnics in the fast arias, but the lyrical ones verge on the sublime. The one duet is particularly striking. The orchestral writing in the overture and sinfonias is very powerful, with a contrapuntal richness that Handel rarely attempted in his opera overtures. My only problem with the recording is the voice of the countertenor, Robert Expert, whose sound does not please me too much. Tastes in countertenors tends to be particular, so not everyone may share my view. All in all, a very fine recording by an unjustly neglected master. One interesting fact about Porpora: he outlived Handel by almost 10 years, and ended up in Vienna as a music teacher, where one of his star pupils was... Joseph Haydn!

Porpora's Orlando really stands out among the slew of recently released performances of baroque operas. Not only is the opera delightful in its entirety, and novel for being one of the few recorded examples by a master of the genre, but there is some very fresh talent performing here. Most listeners will probably not be familiar with the music of Porpora, but one can safely assume that a liking of Handel's style will ensure the same with regard to Porpora's. It is easy to notice how similar they are.

The entire cast is excellent, the countertenor Robert Expert being in fact remarkable. The opening scene "Ombre amene" provides an excellent vehicle in which Mr. Expert is able to showcase a decidedly full warm tone (reminiscent of Nathalie Stutzmann) and pleasantly sonorous upper tessitura. In my opinion his performance alone is worth the price of this release. However all three singers excel in their roles and perform first rate ornamentation and cadenzas. J.B. Otero directs the Real Compania Opera de Camara with panache. His pacing and dramatic variation during the recitatives maintain interest, even when Porpora's music might not seem at its most inspired. Although even then, everything about this recording is just beautiful and immensely satisfying.

Unfortunately there is no English translation of the libretto, French only, although for many fans of the genre this isn't terribly problematic as Metastasio's Orlando has been set by practically every composer of opera seria ever - just browse through your collection for something similar and it should suffice. Highly recommended, an enthusiastic five stars. I heard something about a bonus DVD from a friend who bought this release in Europe but mine didn't come with one.

This performance is a modern cut-up, an editing an rearrangement of Porpora's actual opera "Angelica".It's hard to see the need for such bastardization. I found "Orlando" often lyrical, but occasionally dramatically sluggish. Could this be due to conductor Otero's shifting of things around? Characters from "Angelica" have simply vanished (resulting, probably, in a less expensive production). The beautiful overture was not originally written for "Angelica" but merely tacked on by Otero. However, performance-wise, there's a lot of red meat to enjoy here, though I must echo Mr. Protopapas above about the counter-tenor Robert Expert. He's merely satisfactory, a judgment otherwise unimportant, except for the historical fact that Orlando was an early Porpora vehicle for the composer's young castrato voice student Carlo Broschi--better known to Europe and later history as Farinelli, perhaps the greatest castrato of all. Maybe one of our current best counter-tenors, Phillipe Jaroussky, would have been better, especially since his Carestini album has some Porpora on it.

The current near-tidal wave of baroque opera recordings has had surprisingly little Porpora in it. It's time to rectify that. As is noted above--more Porpora NOW.

Such rare beauty in an opera makes you love baroque music more than we could have imagined possible. To reach universalism Porpora looks for exotic elements and nothing indeed stops him. A Chinese Princess like the Chinese scenes of The Fairy Queen. Some Scottish soldiers like the Britons of King Arthur. Even the Tiger and the Euphrates are there slowly running across the stage. You may wonder what this Mesopotamia or is it Sumerian Assyria is doing in this love boat. We are uprooted from everyday believability and you can forget about Charlemagne and the brave-hearted Roland and abandon them in the broom cupboard of old history. Porpora gives us a love drama. Believe it or not. A Chinese princess runs away from the two men who loves her and ends up in a magic forest somewhere in Europe but next to Paris. There she discovers Medoro dying of a wound. She heals him with plants and falls in love with him. She discovers her drastic fate when Roland arrives. She escapes with Medoro and the abandoned Roland falls into insanity. The music is also a rare example of beauty. Reminiscent of all Handel and Monteverdi, announcing Mozart maybe, it is delicate, fine and light and some arias or duets are more mesmerizing than the eyes of a prophet. For example the duet of Angelica and Medoro "Se infido tu mi chiami". Medoro's voice literally merges with Angelina's. And that's my only criticism. Why on earth is not Medoro an alto, a male voice? It warps Angelica's dilemma, torn between two men. It also reduces the power of love that merges a man and a woman into a unique being, but beyond a difference and there is no differences in the textures of these two voices. What is good for the Romeo and Juliet of the romantic Bellini is not so good in a baroque opera. Especially since Robert Expert is such a convincing Orlando, or Roland if you prefer, in line with Handel's David or Solomon. An Orlando whose lowest notes become as deep as the cave in which the drama is set, reverberating the rock that is crumbling under his feet into insanity. The DVD coming along with the recording gives some marvelous scenes, particularly part of the final furor. Robert Expert sacrifices himself under our voracious teeth, or is it love's, in the most exhilarating way.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines