We know little enough about the circumstances in which Monteverdi's first opera was first given in Mantua in 1607, but that little is highly suggestive and already carries some interesting implications for anyone concerned with interpreting the work. The first performance took place before the members of the Accademia degli Invaghiti, one of whose members, Francesco Gonzaga, had commissioned it. It was probably played in a small room in the Ducal Palace in Mantua with a minimum of staging and scenery, the title-role being taken by the distinguished Francesco Rasi, and three roles (including those of La Musica and Proserpina) being sung by a visiting castrato from Florence. Prevailing nineteenth-century notions of opera, together with the list of instruments printed at the front of the score, have often combined to produce rather grand performances, in opera houses on large stages and with large choruses and instrumental ensembles. But it is dear from the evidence that it was conceived as what we would now call a chamber opera, albeit one that calls for a large group of instruments specified in the score itself.
Philip Pickett's new recording takes what might be called an imaginatively minimalist view of how the score, often imprecise or even totally unhelpful in its indications, should be brought to life. At the centre of his thinking is an approach to the opera deeply sooted in Renaissance humanistic and neoplatonic thought, this in turn leads to an interpretation of many of the details of the score in which symbolic meanings are attached to them. In ''Possente spirto'' one example must serve for many. Pickett takes the chitarrone as a representation of Orfeo's lyre, and the violins, cornetts and harp as the magical sounds emanating from it; this leads him in turn to silence the chitarrone during the ritornellos played by these instruments, so also avoiding the practical problems of combining harp and chitarrone. The practical results of this carefully thought-out approach, often convincing in many of its consequences, is a colouristic attitude towards questions of instrumentation in which certain sounds and combinations are associated with particular ambiences and characters. This is not in itself new, and there is considerable external and internal evidence that shows that Monteverdi thought in these terms, it is simply that Pickett has thought more carefully about the problem than any previous interpreter. Personally I have some doubts about the extent to which we should consider the composer a genuine intellectual in touch with neoplatonic thought, and sometimes what Pickett is talking about in his lengthy note in the accompanying booklet has more to do with Striggio's libretto than with Monteverdi's score. Nevertheless, it is in the detail that the argument is won.
If all this sounds a little too abstract, it should be said that in its clear, coherent view of the score, attention to the historical issues, and in its musicality, this account provides some fierce competition to the existing recordings. In Orfeo, the recitative sections which really constitute the novelty in the writing are often framed within certain set pieces most of which are based on theatrical conventions that predate opera (above all those of the intermedio) and many of which are cast in established musical forms and styles. The first chorus in Act 1 for example (''Vieni, Imeneo'') is a homophonic madrigal which achieves its effect through sensitive declamation of the text allied to a wide-ranging harmonic palette capable of underscoring affective words by carefully calculated shifts in tension, while the second chorus (''Lasciate i monti'') described in the score as a ''balletto'', is reminiscent of the general tone of any number of light canzonettas written in the 1580s and 1590s. And it does seem that, under Pickett's direction, the performers of the New London Consort have a clear view of the mosaic-like nature of the opera, made up of (stylistically speaking) objets-trouves carefully assembled to provide a dramatic narrative. A strong sense of style and characterization, inevitably reinforced by Pickett's sensitive approach to instrumentation, leads to a performance which shows flair and imagination combined with a very high degree of accuracy and technical achievement.
An important test of any performance of Orfeo is the prayer ''Possente spirto'', the spiritual dramatic and literal centre of the work. As a major challenge to the hero's powers as a great singer, and as such his aria is a display in the style of early seventeenth-century virtuoso song, with the virtuosity carried over to the instrumental passages that separate each verse. Here the approach is leisurely and spacious, allowing plenty of room for the music to speak clearly, and John Mark Ainsley turns in a strongly mellifluous reading, sensitively shaped and phrased and, above all, stylish and expressive. The other major soloist, Catherine Bott, who has recorded before with Pickett, displays a characteristic grasp of that crucial bond between words and music that lies at the heart of the style. The performer of all three roles originally designed for the Florentine castrato, she draws upon her remarkable tonal range to characterize each, and executes difficult passage-work with bravura. While I still harbour an enthusiasm for some aspects of the old Harnoncourt recording on Teldec, on balance my overall preference is for this line-up of soloists allied to Pickett's inspired vision.'