Che Puro Ciel: The Rise of Classical Opera
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Christoph Gluck, Tommaso (Michele Francesco Saverio) Traetta, Johann (Adolph) Hasse, Johann Christian Bach
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Magazine Review Date: 02/2014
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 69
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: HMC90 2172
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Orfeo ed Euridice, Movement: Che puro ciel! |
Christoph Gluck, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Christoph Gluck, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Ezio (1750 1st version), Movement: Pensa a serbarmi, o cara |
Christoph Gluck, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Christoph Gluck, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Ascanio in Alba, Movement: ~ |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor René Jacobs, Conductor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Mitridate, Re di Ponto, Movement: ~ |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor René Jacobs, Conductor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Antigona, Movement: Ah, se lo vedi piangere... Ah, si, da te dipende |
Tommaso (Michele Francesco Saverio) Traetta, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor René Jacobs, Conductor Tommaso (Michele Francesco Saverio) Traetta, Composer |
Ifigenia in Tauride, Movement: Dormi Oreste! |
Tommaso (Michele Francesco Saverio) Traetta, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor René Jacobs, Conductor Tommaso (Michele Francesco Saverio) Traetta, Composer |
Il trionfo di Clelia, Movement: Dei di Roma, ah perdonate! |
Johann (Adolph) Hasse, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Johann (Adolph) Hasse, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Artaserse, Movement: No, che non ha la sorte |
Johann Christian Bach, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Johann Christian Bach, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Artaserse, Movement: Vo solcando un mar crudele |
Johann Christian Bach, Composer
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Bejun Mehta, Countertenor Johann Christian Bach, Composer René Jacobs, Conductor |
Author: Richard Wigmore
The Traetta pieces are hardly less memorable. If Mehta’s highest notes can rasp in Emone’s ‘Ah, se lo vedi piangere’ from Antigona, he gives a performance of high-octane abandon, spurred on by quivering, writhing strings. His soft singing and refined phrasing are persuasively heard in the gentle minuet in which Emone implores Antigone to save herself, and in a stately aria from Hasse’s Il trionfo di Clelia, its wide leaps elegantly negotiated.
Elsewhere JC Bach – writing within the traditional Metastasian opera seria aesthetic – is represented by a terrific ‘storm-at-sea’ aria which singer and orchestra dispatch with a barely controlled wildness. Mehta’s dramatic involvement elevates some rather routine invention in the items by the teenage Mozart, not least in a bravura aria from the tension-free serenata Ascanio in Alba, where the coloratura is expressive, never a vehicle for empty posturing. Superb choral cameos – dulcet in the Elysian chorus from Orfeo, by turns insinuating and venomous as the Furies in Traetta’s Ifigenia – set the seal on the most enjoyable, intelligently planned countertenor recital to have come my way in years.
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