La Venexiana / Claudio Cavina FRANCESCO CAVALLI Sospiri d'amore

Two of the brightest singing talents to have emerged from Italy in recent years, Giulia Semenzato and Raffaele Pe, join forces for Sospiri d’amore, a dazzling celebration of operatic arias and duets by that Baroque master of amorous emotions, Francesco Cavalli. Soprano and countertenor are supported by a modern master of Italian Baroque style in Claudio Cavina, who directs La Venexiana (Cavina has also led the Glossa recording of Cavalli’s 1656 opera Artemisia).

Working in Venice with some of the best Italian librettists around in the mid-seventeenth century, Cavalli mined rich emotional seams concerning love in his operas – from tragedy to comedy, from profundity to frivolousness, through to sensuality and vivacity – conjuring up a stream of productions which enjoyed great artistic and financial success; his influence travelled far and wide, and even just in the immediate period of the Baroque this included Rameau, Lully and Handel and Purcell.

With five full-scale duets amongst the solo arias, ariosos and recitar cantando, this new Glossa recording gloriously shows off the talents of two artists who have been gathering important stage experience in the operas of Cavalli: the Venetian Semenzato and the Lombard Pe (who made his debut on the label with The Medici Castrato). Space is also found for one of the vocal genres which Cavalli can lay claim to instigating – the dramatic lamento, here in the form of Lassa, che fò from Statira. In addition, an intriguing picture of Cavalli and his operatic inspiration is to be found in the booklet essay written by Olivier Lexa. (GLOSSA)

Cappella Neapolitana / Antonio Florio GAETANO VENEZIANO Passio

Antonio Florio has discovered and prepared a performing edition – for Glossa’s new Passio release – of the 1685 St John Passion setting by the Neapolitan composer Gaetano Veneziano, which features countertenor Raffaele Pe in the technically demanding role of the Evangelist.

Until recently, Italian Passiontide settings from the Baroque era have been thought to amount to just the one, that by Alessandro Scarlatti, but the score by Veneziano – who was a contemporary of Scarlatti, a maestro in the royal chapel as well as a favoured pupil of Francesco Provenzale – has been located in the Archivio dell’Oratorio dei Girolamini in Naples, and displays a surprising blending of modernity and an older style in its instrumental accompaniment (here provided by Florio’s Cappella Neapolitana). Moreover, it provides an extrovert and atmospheric response to the Gospel text for the roles of Christ (taken by tenor Luca Cervoni) and Pilate (the bass Marco Bussi) as well as for the interventions of the crowd (sung here by the Ghislieri Choir).

Having already done much to revive the name of Gaetano Veneziano, through his recording of the later oratorio, La Santissima Trinità, as well as through discs with other sacred music, Antonio Florio has now created a further fascinating release of Baroque Italian music from Naples, and one which benefits from a typically absorbing booklet essay from Dinko Fabris. (GLOSSA)