The rush to record Handel’s operas continues with this world premiere release of the opening opera of the Royal Academy season for 1727-8. Rescue operas are not what one is used to associating with Handel, yet that, in a sense, is what this is. Costanza, a princess of Navarre, has been shipwrecked on Cyprus, where she now awaits the arrival of her betrothed, Richard the Lionheart (yes, the same). The island’s tyrannical ruler, Isacio, fancies her for himself, however, and spends the entire opera trying to prevent the intended union from going ahead, first by sending Riccardo his daughter Pulcheria instead, and, when that has failed thanks to Pulcheria’s brave entreaties, by imprisoning Costanza and declaring war. Only with his final defeat by Riccardo’s army, aided by Pulcheria’s own fiance Oronte, do things finally turn out happily.
As plots go this is not a great one and it certainly has problems in sustaining itself, even with a conspicuously short First Act. There is some fairly pointless stuff at the beginning involving assumed identities, and the whole business is effectively wrapped up by the end of Act 2, so that Act 3 is only made possible by Isacio going back on his word and abducting Costanza, thereby starting everything up again. Furthermore, Riccardo and Costanza have never met before, and while the libretto makes it clear that an unimpeachable sense of honour is what drives the English king, we are nevertheless asked to believe that their love is already a deep and unbreakable one. Little evidence is given why this should be: Riccardo himself is a standard opera seria hero, a stern but valorous military leader who wins his battles yet is magnanimous in victory; while Costanza seems a hopeless wet who mopes around waiting for other people to sort things out for her. Of greater interest are the more proactive figures of Pulcheria, who functions as a go-between for the two camps, and Isacio, a typically complex Handelian villain whose actions (prompted by desire for Costanza) are understood if not exactly condoned. Ultimately though, these characters hold little fascination, though they are at least consistent, and are drawn with all Handel’s usual skill.
On the other hand, you can never expect to listen to over three hours of this composer’s work without hearing enjoyable music of extreme high quality, and in that respect few listeners will be disappointed here. The performance, too, has many things in its favour. When the opera was written, Handel and his librettists were having to wrestle with the problem of accommodating two star sopranos – Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni – in distinct but equal roles. Cuzzoni is known to have had a simple but affecting voice, which presumably explains why she laments so much, whilst Bordoni had a strong sound and was thus perhaps better suited to the no-nonsense Pulcheria. Christophe Rousset’s casting takes account of this most effectively: as Costanza, Sandrine Piau mixes virtuosity with vocal beauty, while Claire Brua’s no less virtuosic Pulcheria has a darker, more firmly mezzo-like sound. The part of Riccardo himself was written for the great alto castrato Senesino, and Rousset follows recent trends in allocating the part to a mezzo-soprano with a background in nineteenth-century opera. Like Jennifer Larmore in Rene Jacobs’s Giulio Cesare (Harmonia Mundi, 4/92), Sara Mingardo is a complete success, showing great vocal dexterity and strength in the low-lying passagework that was Senesino’s trademark, and communicating all that one could wish for in the character of Riccardo. This is Mingardo’s recording debut, but she looks like a singer to watch out for. Roberto Scaltriti, the Isacio, is not noted for Handel singing either, but his experience in Verdi and Puccini also pays dividends in his loudly villainous arias and recitatives. Olivier Lallouette, as Costanza’s guardian Berardo, and Pascal Bertin, as Oronte, have less to get their teeth into, but both acquit themselves well. This is not a starry cast, but it is well chosen and not one of its members lacks the ability to deal with Handel’s thrilling vocal demands.
The instrumentalists of Les Talens Lyriques, here making their L’Oiseau-Lyre debut, are also well up to the job. The acoustic of the refectory at the Royal Abbey at Fontevraud (where Richard I has one of his three tombs) is a dry one, a little closed in and thus appropriately reminiscent of a theatre, though by the same token the sound is not always a smooth one. Rousset’s direction is sure and idiomatic without being quite as on the ball dramatically as that of a Christie, a McGegan or a Gardiner. Many of the recitatives are well acted at a local level, but had a staged production preceded this recording, instead of a single concert performance, there might have been more dramatic flow and coherence than there is here. I also could not help feeling that some of the silences between items were a bit long, but others may not agree. In general, though, this is an extremely well-sung performance of a Handel opera that few people can have heard; for that we should be pleased, but this is not Handel at his best.'