Ann Hallenberg / Stile Galante / Stefano Aresi THE FARINELLI MANUSCRIPT

With The Farinelli Manuscript Ann Hallenberg, accompanied by Stefano Aresi and Stile Galante, offers a scintillating reading of the music known to have been sung by the castrato Carlo Broschi during his 23-year stay in Spain (and sent as a present to the Empress Maria Theresa). Described as “a force of nature”, displaying flawless coloratura and a purity of timbre, the Swedish mezzo follows her previous appearance on Glossa with Aresi (a disc devoted to music associated with the later castrato Luigi Marchesi) with a spirited demonstration of the musicality which so attracted Farinelli to listeners at the Spanish court.

Enticed to Madrid at the height of his powers in 1737 Farinelli provided regular concerts for the Spanish queens, Elisabetta Farnese and Maria Barbara de Bragança and their respective husbands, Felipe V and Fernando VI, singing some 8 or 9 arias at these soirées. According to present-day attributions, amongst the compositional hands discernible in the manuscript is the work of musicians active in Madrid: Niccolo Conforto, Giovanni Battista Mele and Farinelli himself. The music of other prominent Italian composers of the time – Giay, Latilla and Giacomelli – also appear in the manuscript.

Hallenberg sings the written-out ornaments and da capos appearing in Farinelli’s manuscript, with Aresi providing others and following the precise instrumentation and ensemble layout as detailed in court archives. Aresi also contributes an essay for the booklet which continues the debunking of historical misinformation surrounding Farinelli’s time in Madrid.

Il Pomo D'Oro / George Petrou HANDEL Ottone

Premiered at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, in January 1723, Ottone was the first Handel opera to pair his star draws of the 1720s: the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni, making her London debut as Teofane, and the castrato Senesino in the title-role. Both were singers with attitude. But they met their match in Handel, who reputedly threatened to throw Cuzzoni out of the window until she agreed to quell her prima donna’s vanity and sing Teofane’s simple and touching opening aria ‘Falsa imagine’. Ironically, the aria made Cuzzoni’s London reputation as a soprano without equal in the ‘pathetic’ style. Centring on the attempts of the scheming matriarch Gismonda and her unlovely son Adelberto to prevent King Ottone from marrying the Byzantine Princess Teofane and assuming his rightful throne, Ottone’s pseudo-historical libretto is often hopelessly confused. This evidently mattered not a jot to Handel’s audiences. The combination of Senesino, Cuzzoni and Handel’s melodic fertility (Charles Burney reported that many of the arias soon became ‘national favourites’) made Ottone an instant success. With a total of 36 performances over five seasons, it was eclipsed in popularity only by Rinaldo during his lifetime.

These days Ottone ranks well down the Handel pecking order, not least because of the plot’s muddles and absurdities. On CD, though, it has fared relatively well, with two period-instrument versions appearing in quick succession from Nicholas McGegan (Harmonia Mundi, 3/93) and Robert King (Hyperion, 7/93). Both do the opera fair justice. But this new version, recorded in the sympathetic acoustic of the Villa San Fermo in the Veneto, easily surpasses them in consistency of casting and dramatic flair. Without pressing the tempos unduly (except when dancing on hot coals in the Overture’s fugue), George Petrou draws rhythmically animated, sensitively coloured playing from the crack Italian band. Abetted by an alert, unfussy continuo, recitatives are lively and naturally paced, though not even Petrou and his singers can save the final denouement from blink-and-you-miss-it perfunctoriness.

The cast is uniformly strong. Ottone is more mooning lover than strutting hero, always ready to buckle in a crisis. But Max Emanuel Cencic, with his unusually powerful, sensuous countertenor, rescues him from self-regarding wimpishess. He sings his tender opening siciliano and Act 3 lament ‘Dove sei?’ with intense beauty of line and tone, always responsive to the text, and throws off his bravura arias with unforced brilliance. As the patiently suffering (even by Baroque opera standards) heroine, the American soprano Lauren Snouffer has a warmer, richer voice than either of her CD rivals and a nimble coloratura technique. With a mezzo glint in her tone, she catches well the passionate undercurrents of Teofane’s music, whether in ‘Falsa imagine’, her yearning plea for peace ‘Affanni dei pensier’ or the nocturnal garden scena in Act 3. Some may find her quick vibrato slightly disconcerting in Handel, though I soon got used to it.

Gismonda’s inconsistently drawn character, veering between ruthless ambition and blithe exuberance, is softened by the lulling ‘Vieni, o figlio’, an exquisite outpouring of maternal love. Ann Hallenberg, always a superb Handelian, sings this with musing inwardness, using delicate ornamentation to enhance the intensity of the da capo. Elsewhere she musters all the imperiousness and, in the splenetic ‘Trema, tiranno’, venom that the matriarch’s music demands. In the role of Matilda, in love with the contemptible Adelberto in spite of herself, mezzo Anna Starushkevych sings with sensitivity and (in her fiery denunciation of Ottone) plenty of temperament, though her coloratura can be bumpy. Xavier Sabata, as Adelberto, is mellifluous in his quieter, lyrical music but tends to hoot when spitting out defiance in ‘Tu puoi straziarmi’. Eschewing mere bluster, bass-baritone Pavel Kudinov sings with fine, clean resonance and impressive agility – a hint of tenderness, too, in his final aria – as the jolly pirate Emireno, who eventually turns out to be Teofane’s brother in disguise (don’t question the maths – this is opera seria).

Despite minor provisos, this new recording is emphatically the version to have of an opera whose dramatic flaws are redeemed by magnificent individual scenes and any number of good tunes. It is also more complete than its rivals, including, as David Vickers explains in an informative note, all the music heard at the 1723 premiere plus two new arias added for Cuzzoni’s benefit night later that season and, as an appendix, three numbers Handel composed for Senesino when he revived Ottone in 1726. (Richard Wigmore / Gramophone)

Ann Hallenberg / Il Complesso Barocco / Alan Curtis HIDDEN HANDEL

Most of the Handel pieces on this release are "hidden" in that if you go to the editions of the operas from which they are taken, you won't find them. Many of them were "insertion arias," written for revivals of Handel operas where the new singers wanted something tailor made. Two were written for insertion into the opera of someone else, namely Alessandro Scarlatti, and there are several miscellaneous rarities and rather odd instrumental pieces for interludes. It might sound like an excursion into the dustier corners of the Handel repertory on the part of the historical-instrument group Il Complesso Barocco and their conductor Alan Curtis, who has been at this kind of thing since most of the current crop of Baroque opera conductors were toddlers and who presumably has earned the right to do what he wants. No fewer than nine of the pieces are claimed to be world premieres. Yet this music is generally first-rate. It is by its very nature difficult, even more so than usual for Handel, for the insertion arias were expressly written for vocalists with formidable talent. On top of that, Swedish mezzo soprano Ann Hallenberg has to contend with music in a variety of ranges. Fortunately, her voice is ideal for the project, and she emerges as the star of the show; Curtis' conducting is a bit mannered. Hallenberg combines agility at the top of her range with a rich, powerful sound in the lower phases, and the real rewards come in a piece like "Vieni, o caro, che senza il tuo core," written for Rinaldo, HWV 7, where she gets to make full use of each register. You might buy this album just to hear Hallenberg in fine form, or to hear some Handel that nobody else has recorded; either of those is reason enough. (James Manheim)

Ann Hallenberg / Il Pomo d'Oro / Riccardo Minasi AGRIPPINA

The programme presented by Ann Hallenberg (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi) is a homage to the historical roman figures of Agrippina, one of the earliest historical women to inspire the fantasy of librettists and composers. Ann Hallenberg and her husband Holger Schmitt-Hallenberg, musicologist, researched the musical archives to unearth all surviving operatic manuscripts containing the figure of Agrippina (two sisters and one daugther).

Twelve the arias are WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS. Apart from Handel’s famous opera ‘Agrippina’ and Telemann’s ‘Germanicus’, all music on this album has been recorded for the first time. This album is also a fascinating journey through the history of baroque opera. The earliest piece, Legrenzi’s ‘Germanico sul Reno’ dates from 1676 and is a typical example of early baroque style. The latest work, Graun’s ‘Britannico’ from 1752, was written only four years before the birth of Mozart, at the very end of the musical baroque period.

The Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg regularly appears in opera houses and festivals all over the world. Her repertoire includes a large number of leading roles in operas by Rossini, Mozart, Gluck, Handel, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Purcell, Bizet and Massenet. Equally at home on the concert platform she has built an unusually vast repertoire that spans music from the early 17th century with Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Berlioz to 20th century composers such as Mahler and Waxman.

Violonist and conductor Riccardo Minasi was born in Rome in 1978. He has performed both as soloist as well as concertmaster with many period orchestras. As a conductor he directed the Orchestra and Choir of the Opéra National de Lyon, Kammerakademie of Potsdam, Zürcher Kammerorchester, Balthasar Neumann Ensemble. In 2010 he worked as assistant conductor, concertmaster, curator and editor of the critical edition of the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini with Cecilia Bartoli and Thomas Hengelbrock. Since its foundation in 2012 he is the conductor of the ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro, with whom he has a full calendar of performances and has already realized many highly awarded recordings.

Ann Hallenberg / Il Pomo d'Oro / Stefano Montanari CARNEVALE 1729

Where to begin listing the virtues of this gorgeous double-CD release by mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg? Perhaps with the unique programming concept, re-creating the operas staged during Carnival season in the year 1729 in Venice, a special year because all the big stars of Italian opera had come back home after disagreements with their impresario, Handel, in England. The arias, written for the likes of the castrato Senesino and the soprano Faustina Bordoni, have all the technical fireworks of the Handel operas of the 1720s that have gained popularity. And consider that the music is virtually unknown, with much of it here receiving its premiere on recordings; much of the research was done by Hallenberg herself, along with her husband, with performers once again leaving musicology in the dust. Is it second-order opera? Hardly, and here you can rely on the opinion of Handel himself, who dropped in to hear this remarkable stretch of music and took some of it back to London to make pastiches out of it. You can stop in anywhere for vocal heroics, but sample one of the more melodic pieces, such as "Bel piacer saria d'un core", from Semiramide riconosciuta of Nicola Porpora, Haydn's teacher. The program is intelligently put together, with most of the pieces grouped together by individual opera, but two altogether fascinating selections from Gianguir, by the all-but-unknown Geminiano Giacomelli framing the arias from Giuseppe Maria Orlandini's Adelaide on CD 1. The sharp, sensitive orchestral work of Il Pomo d'Oro under Stefano Montanari is a major attraction. And last, but certainly not least, is the voice of Hallenberg herself, arguably at its absolute peak, easily tackling arias across a wide range, delivering plenty of power in the big runs and yet entering into each character. Oh, yes, Pentatone's audiophile-quality sound, recorded at the entirely appropriate Villa San Fermo in Lonigo, is superb. Sit back and enjoy, says Pentatone's little logo. Indeed: this is one of those rare recordings that breaks entirely new ground yet remains a pure pleasure, fully realized on its own terms. (James Manheim)

Europa Galante / Fabio Biondi G.F. HANDEL Imeneo (Serenata "Hymen" - Dublin, 1742)

Fabio Biondi signs his fifth release on Glossa with a further opera exploration, here with Europa Galante and providing a vital interpretation of Handel’s late opera Imeneo, given in its serenade style 1742 Dublin version. 

If, by this date, the London public was tiring of the Italian opera in which Handel had been excelling for decades, and the composer was now turning both to the oratorio and in the direction of the galant style, he was still able to call upon divos and divas of the quality of La Francesina and Giovanni Battista Andreoni to perform his music. Though not a success in its Lincoln’s Inn Fields staging in London, Imeneo was performed by Handel as his only Italian work during his season in Dublin (which also saw the first performance of Messiah), complete with additional arias to add to those praised in 1740 and a pruning of the libretto (which hadn’t received approval).

The revised story turns on Tirinto (Ann Hallenberg in Biondi’s modern-day production, as performed at the Handel Festival in Halle) pining for his beloved and kidnapped Rosmene (Monica Piccinini). Her liberation by Imeneo (Magnus Staveland) leads to Rosmene being required to decide which of the two Athenians to wed. Hymen – as Handel’s work was known in Dublin – was the god of marriage, and so, will love overcome duty and reason or not? Fabio Biondi, directing from the violin, brings all his own experience in both Italian music and music from the eighteenth century in delivering a stunning vindication of an unfairly neglected Handel opera. (GLOSSA)

Emmanuelle Haïm / Le Concert d'Astrée HANDEL Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno

Handel wrote the secular oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The triumph of Time and of Enlightenment) to the text of one of his patrons, Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, in Rome in 1707. The libretto, which doesn't stand up to close logical scrutiny, centers on Beauty, who must choose between self-indulgent Pleasure and the austerity of allegiance to Time and Enlightenment. Needless to say, any patron entering the theater for the performance, having noted the title on the playbill, would have no doubt about the outcome of the struggle, so dramatic suspense cannot have been one of the inducements for an eighteenth century audience. The rewards, however, are real, most notably Handel's remarkably fertile inventiveness and musical ingenuity, which justified sitting through a two-and-a-half-hour performance that was guaranteed to be a dramatic non-starter. Handel keeps recitatives to a minimum, and the oratorio is rich in musical substance and variety. With this CD there's the added attraction of stellar vocal and instrumental performances. Emmanuelle Haïm leads le Concert d'Astrée in a light and sparkling reading, and the energy never lags. Soprano Natalie Dessay as Bellezza is vulnerably delicate, but also has reserves of temperamental strength, and she brings real warmth to the personification. As Piacere, mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg is beguilingly tempting, displaying more than a little naughtiness, and she sings with absolute security and ravishing tonal beauty. Alto Sonia Prina, as Disingenno, is a genuine coloratura alto, with dazzling agility as well as a full, pure tone. Pavol Brslik, as Tempo, has a light but focused and pleasing tenor, and he nails the composer's virtuosic demands. Virgin's sound is immaculate, with depth and ideal resonance. (Stephen Eddins)