Briefly Noted: Tiranno

Handel / A. Scarlatti / Monteverdi / Monari, Cantatas, K. Lindsey, Arcangelo, J. Cohen (released on May 28, 2021) Alpha 736 | 75'34"

The latest solo recital disc from mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey, released last year, is just now reaching my ears. She partners again with Jonathan Cohen and the early music ensemble Arcangelo, the same as her previous album, with Ariadne-themed pieces by Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti, and Haydn. This new recording is devoted to the Roman emperor Nero, again with secular cantatas by Handel and Scarlatti père, as well as one by Bartolomeo Monari (1662-1697) and excerpts from Monteverdi's opera L'Incoronazione di Poppea.

The program ingeniously traces an arch between the two Scarlatti cantatas, Il Nerone and La morte di Nerone, which serve as bookends. In between, we get glimpses of the women who loved Nero and were betrayed by him: his mother, Agrippina, whom he had assassinated; his wife, Octavia, foisted on him by the scheming Agrippina, whom he divorced, exiled, and then executed; and his mistress and second wife, Poppea, whose death he caused either by poisoning her or causing her to miscarry a child after he kicked her in the abdomen.

The Richmond-born mezzo-soprano remains in good form in this remarkable disc. The bottom range has become richer, although a few high notes sound squeezed and slightly off in the aria "Veder chi pena" in the first Scarlatti cantata, perhaps intended to show Nero's loss of mental stability as he relishes the suffering of his people while Rome burns. Her voice still displays amazing virtuosity overall; the melismatic technique is in a class of its own, with runs so clearly delineated, as in Handel's showpiece "Orrida, oscura" from the cantata Agrippina condotta a morire. Cohen's ensemble adds outstanding instrumental contributions all around.

In the Monteverdi selections, Lindsey matches well with tenor Andrew Staples's Lucan in "Or che Seneca è morto" and gives dramatic force to Ottavia's lament "Addio Roma!" The duet "Pur ti miro," with soprano Nardus Williams, is a less suitable pairing in some ways, but still lovely. Never has that love duet of emperor and mistress rang more hollow than when it is followed by Bartolomeo Monari's fine cantata La Poppea, on Nero's murder of his great love. The cycle of bad karma comes full circle with Scarlatti's La morte di Nerone - both of these last two cantatas are given world premiere recordings on this disc. Nero finds himself abandoned by all and, depending on the telling, commits suicide or forces someone to kill him, dying on the anniversary of Octavia's death.

Lindsey, who was born in Richmond, has been gracing these pages since 2005, when she was a young artist with Wolf Trap Opera Company. She has returned to the area the last few years mostly with Washington Concert Opera, most recently in Gluck's Orphée last month. She will come back to Wolf Trap this summer, in a recital combining Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben and Fauré's La Chanson d'Ève on July 8.

Briefly Noted: Sunhae Im's Orpheus Cantatas

Pergolesi / A. Scarlatti / Clérambault / Rameau, Orfeo, S. Im, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (released on March 10, 2015) HMC 902189 | 69'12"

The legend of Orpheus is central to music history, most famously in Monteverdi's opera on the subject. Many other composers have set the story of the most famous musician in Greek mythology, and this debut recital disc by Sunhae Im for Harmonia Mundi brings together four less-known examples, all cantatas. The four texts, half in Italian and the other half in French, take up different parts of the story and often switch between the voice of the narrator and those of various characters, including but not limited to Orpheus.

We have reviewed South Korean soprano Sunhae Im live only once, as part of the last local appearance of Les Arts Florissants, sadly back in 2004. My impression of her voice from recordings -- light, butterfly-fluttery, wilting and slightly acidic at the very top -- was not changed much by this recording, which has some beautiful moments. She can float her voice to pleasing effect in slow arias, like the first of two in Pergolesi's Orfeo, which ends with Orpheus resolving strongly to descend into hell. By contrast, Alessandro Scarlatti's L'Orfeo opens with Orpheus leading Eurydice back to earth's surface (as does Rameau's Orphée), and he sings the plaintive Chi m'invola la cara Euridice when he sees her taken away from him. The gleaming paired violins of the always fine Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin soar in searing suspensions, but Im's voice is not quite so nice at the top. This cantata's gorgeous slow aria Sordo il tronco, though, is exceptional, with its accompaniment of whispering low strings.

Im is at her best in Louis-Nicolas Clérambault's Orphée, a piece well worth hearing, which begins with a slow aria depicting Orpheus's sadness. When Orpheus decides to enter Hell, the narrator encourages him on his way, but the musical centerpiece is a slow aria (marked "Fort lent et fort tendre") with high, tinkly harpsichord and breathy solo traverso, delicate and beautiful playing to help Orpheus charm Pluto's ear. This aria is a worthy successor to the tradition of such pieces for that dramatic confrontation, beginning with Monteverdi's Possente spirto.

Briefly Noted: Per la Vergine Maria

Per la Vergine Maria, Concerto Italiano, R. Alessandrini (released on June 28, 2011) Naive OP 30505 | 1h03

We enjoy Concerto Italiano's releases of lesser-known 18th-century sacred music -- the last one was a pairing of Mass settings by Pergolesi and Alessandro Scarlatti. This disc, from last year, brings together settings of Latin Marian texts: Claudio Monteverdi's Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a 6 voci; three 8-voice settings of the Magnificat by Pietro Paolo Bencini (c. 1675-1755), Padre Soler (1729-1783), and Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674); two settings of the Salve Regina, for nine voices by Alessandro Melani (1639-1703) and for four voices by Alessandro Scarlatti; and Stravinsky's 4-voice setting of the Ave Maria. The settings are all rather simple, in mostly homophonic textures, performed with one singer to a part and the continuo accompaniment realized by organ and two theorbos. The sound is magnificent, capturing some, but not too much, of the generously resonant acoustic of the location, the Basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua. The musical performances are all top-notch, too, with an ensemble of nine lovely voices blended into a cohesive ensemble of various combinations. There are some passages that feature one or more solo passages, with only one long solo, rendered plangently by soprano Monica Piccinini, in Melani's lovely Salve Regina. Bencini's virtually unknown setting of the Magnificat, with its meditative repetitions of two-chord patterns and affecting chain sequences, should be on every choir conductor's radar, as should the pieces by Scarlatti and Carissimi. Concluding with the Stravinsky miniature is a clever way to trace the connection between the beginning and end of the tonal era.

Alessandro Scarlatti's Trinity Oratorio

A. Scarlatti, Oratorio per la Santissima Trinità, R. Invernizzi, V. Gens, V. Genaux, Europa Galante, F. Biondi (re-released on October 25, 2010) Virgin 628647 2 | 67'27"

Although Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) was one of the most lauded composers of the Italian Baroque, his music is largely unknown today. If we have reviewed the occasional recording or referred once in a while to others' reviews of his music, we hear anything by this composer all too rarely in a live performance. The little oratorio, in the Roman style, recorded lovingly in this re-release from Fabio Biondi and his ensemble Europa Galante is indeed an oddity (receiving its U.S. premiere, under Biondi, only in 2003). The libretto sets five allegorical characters off against one another, in a sort of coffee-house argument about the nature of the Trinity -- all in operatic Italian verses preset for recitatives, arias, and duets. The work is episodic in a way intended to divert the listener, with most of the nearly fifty movements requiring less than a minute or two to perform. This 1715 oratorio for the feast of the Holy Trinity comes from the composer's second tenure in Naples, at a time when his musical style was well on its way to being out of vogue. Even the great biographer of the elder Scarlatti, Edward Dent, dismisses the Oratorio per la Santissima Trinità as having a subject "not at all appropriate for musical treatment" (especially in operatic stanzas), adding curtly that "Scarlatti has, if possible, surpassed his poet in dryness."

Biondi's ensemble, just refined strings and varied continuo, provides lean and elegant lines in support of the singers. The three treble voices are all excellent: Véronique Gens as a maternal Amor Divino (Divine Love) and Vivica Genaux as a particularly earthy Teologia (Theology), but especially the heavenly Fede (Faith) of Roberta Invernizzi. Unfortunately, the two men are a disappointment, although not a disaster. Tenor Paul Agnew sounds just slightly rusty and nasal as Infedeltà (Faithlessness, or Atheism), while bass Roberto Abbondanza makes a resonant but kooky Tempo (Time), with some melismas on 'o' and 'a' vowels sounding as if he articulated the notes by slightly closing his lips to make semi-vowels, as in the aria Pretende invano. So, this is more a curiosity for Baroque music lovers than a must-have, although the only competition is a recording by the Alessandro Stradella Consort, now expensive. For the collector, it may be better to seek out a copy of the original release of this disc, from 2004, even if it costs a little more, to get the text and translation of the libretto, which was omitted from the booklet for the re-release.