Hearing a Handel opera given the full treatment - an international, starry cast, a full modern orchestra, a production in one of the world's great opera houses - is a delight for any lover of the composer weary of the usual shoestring productions that do him little justice: at last Handel is in his proper place among opera composers. But is this his proper place? This recording, made at the Nationaltheater in Munich three years ago, provokes ambiguous reactions. It is splendidly done, in its way, but this is not, to my mind, the right way, or indeed an acceptable one. I am sure that many listeners will react as I did to the massed strings of the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra and their articulation of Handel's lines, the heavy and metric direction, and especially to the vibrato used by most of the singers. After a while, one tempers one's way of listening, and by the end, indeed by the middle of Act 2 (the musical centre of gravity of the opera), I was beginning to relish some aspects of the performance, especially the way the singers' powerful emotional commitment to the music comes across as one listens.
Quite a lot else comes across, too: I don't know what the weather was like in Munich in April 1997, but clearly it was high season for coughing. I don't think I have ever heard a recording with so noisy an audience; sometimes there's a general audience hum, it seems, and a lot of miscellaneous banging and shuffling and clattering and movement generally (which I take, perhaps charitably, to be mostly from the stage). There is applause at the act ends, and occasionally - rather arbitrarily, one feels - during the performance; the audience seems to grow in enthusiasm as the evening wears on.
Ivor Bolton conducts, giving a firm and disciplined account of the overture, and keeping the score moving along pretty well, though here and there he does rather luxuriate in the slower items. Perhaps it is the circumstances that do not permit him to show much of the expertise in baroque music with which he is generally credited; the rhythms are stolid, the textures weighty, and sometimes the music is driven.
Serse is one of Handel's few operas with comic elements: to some extent Xerxes himself is a figure of fun (although it is the combination of his regal power and unruly amorous whims that provides the mainspring of the plot, and gives rise to the situations that drew from Handel the great music of Act 2) ; several other characters have light or ironic elements, and there is a comic servant.
The big opera house style does not work too well here; I found the singers' vibrato - Ann Murray's, and perhaps more particularly Yvonne Kenny's - hard to take. The Amastre, too, Patricia Bardon, sounds at times a bit more like an Eboli or an Ortrud; for example, in the intense, hectic account of her Act 1 aria, but the passion is justified in her virtuoso aria at the centre of the opera and there is some well-focused and more shapely singing from her in Act 3. The Atalanta, Julie Kaufmann, seemed edgy and shrill at times, but there is some pleasantly light singing in Act 2, especially her delightful 'Dira che amor per me'. Christopher Robson's musical intelligence and Handelian experience come through in Arsamene's music, even if his voice doesn't have quite its former concentration; he sings with great passion in the group of numbers in the middle of Act 2 (a moving F minor siciliano, a desolate little arietta and the fiery 'Si, la voglio') and again in the very high-lying final aria. (The role of Arsamene, Xerxes' brother, was originally composed for a female mezzo; assigning it to a countertenor may be ill-advised.) The Ariodate, Umberto Chiummo, has a huge, heavyweight bass voice; he must be a fine Fafner. The lighter bass, Jan Zinkler, manages the comic music adequately but sometimes shouts.
The two principals are both distinguished singers. Yvonne Kenny, as Romilda, sings mostly in a manner apt for a large opera house (inevitably, when you are in one), but there are some delicate and more Handelian things, too, for example, in her pathetic F sharp minor arietta in Act 1 and her spirited account of the closing aria of Act 2. The glitter in her tone is very attractive. But the real star, of course, is Ann Murray. 'Ombra mai fu' is almost voluptuously beautiful, rich with vibrato; but in her later Act 1 arias the singing, especially the high notes, seems forced, though 'Piu che penso' is certainly duly dramatic. She warms as the evening goes on, with very brilliant singing in her first Act 2 aria, real intensity in her beautiful second ('Il core spera'), subtle timing in her first Act 3 aria and great passion in the extraordinary final one ('Crude furie degl'orridi abissi'). I don't think this is Murray's finest Handelian achievement, but it is certainly fine and dramatic opera house singing.
There is, then, much to admire in this recording, but for Handelians the version of Serse under Nicholas McGegan (Conifer, 6/98) remains the clear choice.'