Premiered at the King’s Theatre in May 1723, Flavio is one of those Handel operas – Serse and Partenope are others – that takes a wryly amused view of the power struggles, bulging egos and heroic posturing endemic to opera seria.
With its pungent mix of comedy, ironic detachment and near-tragedy, it
now seems one the composer’s most endearing stage works. Handel’s
aristocratic audiences, though, evidently preferred operas of a loftier
cast. Despite the presence of the two biggest stars of the day, Cuzzoni
and Senesino, Flavio ran for just eight performances (Giulio Cesare, its immediate successor, netted 13), and was revived just once in Handel’s lifetime.
Set in a legendary Dark Ages when Britain was supposedly ruled
by Lombardy, the plot hinges on the whims of the oversexed, cynically
manipulative King Flavio, whose lust for the beautiful – and far from
innocent – Teodata threatens to wreak havoc on everyone around him.
Opening with a delectable nocturnal love duet for Teodata and her secret
lover Vitige, Act 1 is light in tone, with a succession of arias in
graceful and/or jaunty dance rhythms. Then, as the plot takes a darker,
potentially tragic turn, Handel responds with some of his most piercing
arias, above all for the heroine Emilia (the Cuzzoni role), whose father
Lotario has been killed in a duel by her fiancé Guido. Lotario’s death
apart, all ends well, of course, with Emilia and Guido reconciled and
reunited after she has feared him dead, and the ever-capricious Flavio
“punishing” Vitige by granting him the hand of Teodata.
Christian Curnyn and his spruce period band finely catch the tone and tinta of
this delectable opera. Tempi – mobile but never frenetic – are aptly
chosen, rhythms buoyant. Yet Curnyn gives due weight to the opera’s
graver moments, whether in Emilia’s haunting siciliano aria that
closes Act 2, cleaving mournfully to the minor key virtually throughout,
or Guido’s desolate final aria, in the rare, “extreme” key of B flat
minor. The singers, many of them Curnyn regulars, dispatch their arias
with fine Handelian style and spirit, and, crucially, bring real
theatrical vitality to their recitative exchanges. Handel curiously cast
the part of Teodata (written for the deep contralto Anastasia Robinson)
for a lower voice than that of her lover Vitige. But while her timbre
more naturally suggests gravity than levity, Hilary Summers catches
Teodata’s teasing, flirtatious nature through inflection and phrasing.
As her lover Vitige, Croatian mezzo Renata Pokupic´ sings with grace,
verve and (not least in Vitige’s jealous outburst in Act 3) an exciting
flame in the tone; and Thomas Walker and the sonorous bass Andrew
Foster-Williams excel in the blustering, mock-heroic coloratura arias
for the squabbling councillors Ugone and Lotario.
As Flavio, Tim Mead sings smoothly and mellifluously without
always catching to the full the mingled charm, absurdity and menace of
the king’s character. Iestyn Davies, in the Senesino role of Guido, has
slightly more “bite” to his countertenor, and rises impressively both to
the anguished fury of his Act 2 aria “Rompo i lacci” and the profound
pathos of his final aria. Always a lovely Handel singer, Rosemary Joshua
brings to Emilia’s glorious music a pure, lucent tone and a vivid sense
of character, growing from initial blitheness, through her aching
farewell to Guido – one of those ravishing, timeless Handelian moments –
to the grieving intensity of her siciliano lament for her father. The sole rival Flavio,
directed by René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi, 7/90), has been rightly
praised. But on balance I’d recommend this beautifully recorded new
version of Handel’s flavoursome tragicomedy, for its (on the whole)
superior cast and orchestral playing and for Curnyn’s direction,
stylish, lively and unaffected where Jacobs can be irritatingly
interventionist. (Richard Wigmore / Gramophone)
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