Had you asked a musical German of the 1730s or 1740s to identify the greatest living composer of his country, he would probably have named not Bach or Handel but either Telemann or Hasse. Johann Adolf Hasse, born near Hamburg in 1699 and thoroughly Italianized when he was a young man, was widely reckoned the leading operatic composer of the time, in demand across Italy, Germany and Austria. He spent much of his working life at the Dresden court and it was during his first spell there, in the early 1730s, that he wrote Cleofide, a setting of a libretto by Metastasio, his much admired Alessandro nell' Indie in revised form (as was Handel's Poro of the same year, 1731: the titles reflect the differences in emphasis in the particular revision of the libretto used by each). In Cleofide, about half of Metastasio's aria texts were replaced by new ones—interestingly, when he revised the work for Venice five years later, he returned to the poet's original, for he grew closer to Metastasio as time went on. And Hasse included a handful of arias from earlier works. Nevertheless, this is essentially a model opera seria, its typical succession of arias and recitatives with only the occasional duet or 'chorus' and a single accompanied recitative, and its equally typical Metastasian ethic conveyed in a complex but subtly devised plot. I suspect this may be the first time a complete opera seria has been recorded, in a style of performance as close to the original as anyone knows how. We can all start testing in practice our cherished theories as to whether it 'works' as music.
My own theory has always been that it would granted the acceptance of the conventions behind the form (which in truth are not much odder than those behind quite a lot of other aesthetic constructs that we are prepared to go along with). And this recording, I am pleased to say, bears it out: I won't say that there isn't a dull moment on these four discs, but one is constantly aware of the elegance and logic of the work as a whole, the release of tension provided by the arias, the variety of emotion expressed in them (and the accomplished artifice by which this is managed). Hasse's music is of high, consistent quality. It is not great music, with the boldness, the originality or the expressive depth of Handel's; Hasse belongs to the pre-classical generation, whose phrases are shorter and more regular and whose harmony is more stereotyped. But going through the 30-odd arias here you will find several that are simply vigorous (Alexander the Great, the predictably magnanimous conquering hero of the opera, has one splendid outburst of rage), several that are truly pathetic (especially those for the heroine Cleophis, constantly the object of jealous suspicion on the part of her husband Porus, King of India) and many that are graceful, polished and apt settings of the words. There are several 'simile arias', where the character refers to (for example) a fish swimming in the sea or a wounded stag in the wood, which give the composer a reasonably legitimate opportunity to vary the orchestral colouring to reflect the words, in the former case with liquescent flutes, the latter with horns.
The work is done proud in the present performance. There isn't a weak member of the cast, and there are some very strong ones. Chief among them properly, is the primo uomo, in Alexander the Great's role: Dominique Visse, a very remarkable alto whose finely concentrated tone, with a hint of graininess in the voice, seems to me ideal. The great castrato singers were famous for their powerful attack, and I imagine that Visse runs them very close. His passage-work, too, has splendid precision. There is also the excellent Porus of Derek Lee Ragin, another alto of unusual power and firm focus and he puts over convincingly the quite complex character of the Indian king with his nagging jealousy. Then there is Emma Kirkby, in the prima donna part written for Faustina Bordoni, formerly one of Handel's star singers and now Hasse's wife. Her voice may not strike one as obviously operatic in nature, yet she sings this Dart very beautifully indeed, often with much pathos, with considerable warmth in the fine aria she has early in Act 2, and with very great brilliance in her aria at the end of the act. Her ornamentation throughout is etched out with rare precision and refinement. I can imagine a more emotional account of the role but hardly one better or more sweetly sung. The other female part, Eryxena, is gracefully and warmly done by Agnes Mellon; in company with Emma Kirkby and four high male voices (one hardly misses a tenor or bass), she sounds a shade soft-edged, but that is not unsuitable. David Cordier makes a sure and firm Timagenes, Alexander's traitrous general, and Randall K. Wong shows an astonishingly high soprano, which he uses with reasonable assurance in the quite florid music for Porus's friend Gandartes.
Most of the singers ornament their da capo sections tastefully; just once or twice they venture something a shade too ornate or too high for everyone's comfort. A particular strength of the set lies in the execution of the recitative, which is perfectly paced quite rapid, yet with enough time for the singers to communicate the expressive, rhetorical sense of what they are saying. This is to the credit of William Christie, who has charge of the performance. There are occasional moments where one suspects a slight lack of sympathy with this German-Italian music, particularly where he pushes a tempo on a little too much or dashes to the end of a piece almost perfunctorily, not allowing due time for rounding it off. But he secures excellent and stylish orchestral playing from the Cologne group. The presentation of the set is beyond reproach, with thoughtful essays by Helga Luhning and Reinhard Strohm, respectively on the libretto and the work's background, and a facsimile of the original Italian libretto with an English text in a separate booklet. The recorded sound has plenty of presence. Warmly recommended to anyone with an interest in serious opera of the eighteenth century.'