In the last couple of decades or so, a number of recordings of early operas have appeared that have both put flesh on the researches of musicologists and opened the eyes of the general musical public to a vast store of riches only now starting to be tapped. Our musical horizons have been broadened by acquaintance with works not only by relatively familiar names (Jommelli, Hasse, Paisiello, for example) but by many obscurer figures: none could be more obscure to all but specialists than Tomas de Torrejon y Velasco. But he was one of the most important musical figures in Peru in the late seventeenth century. Born and educated in Spain, he became a page to the future viceroy of Peru and at the age of 23 accompanied him to Lima (the administrative and cultural centre of Spain’s colonial empire), where for more than half a century he was maestro de capilla at the cathedral, writing polychoral works that achieved considerable fame. In 1701 he was commissioned to compose an opera to honour the new king, Philip V, on his 18th birthday: it was the first opera to be produced in the New World whose music is extant.
Preceded by a loa in which allegorical figures hail the arrival of a new star, La purpura de la rosa (‘The blood of the rose’) is a one-act opera on a text by Calderon (which had already been set 40 years previously by Juan Hidalgo). It deals with the myth of Venus and the initially hesitant Adonis and the jealousy of Mars, who is goaded on by his sister Bellona; but inserted into it are popular dances, low-life characters – a peasant, his wife and a soldier (who provide what may charitably be called comic relief) – and some personifications of human emotions. The work’s overall, quite individual style differs markedly from contemporary Italian baroque opera: recitatives are absent, replaced by strophic ariosos; all the characters but two are allotted to actresses, so that the tessitura throughout is high; and the three main characters are each provided with a theme that serves to identify them at the start of a scene. The music, which incorporates South American dance rhythms, has been edited by the American scholar Louise Stein, who has colourfully filled out the original’s single continuo line with an instrumental ensemble typical of the period (but was it ever as virtuosic as this, I wonder?) and reconstructed choruses and diferencias in the dances.
The prevalence of women’s voices makes it almost impossible to know who everyone is, and what is going on, unless one keeps a firm eye on the libretto; and it is somewhat bewildering that Mars is the most feminine-sounding; but all the singers are good, particular praise being due to Ellen Hargis in the demanding part of Adonis. Concerted voices tend to be overloud (abetted by the acoustics of the recording venue); and not until well into the second half is much attempt made to underline the work’s dramatic course – for example, off-stage placing, frequently called for, is totally ignored – and this often results in long, repetitious strophic sequences. The dramatic high spot, however – the battle between Mars (egged on by Bellona), who seeks to wreak revenge on Adonis, and Venus, who implores Jupiter to intervene with his thunderbolts – is stirring and occurs to the rhythm of a xacara. Predictably, the most moving music is at the death of Adonis and Venus’s lament for him. After the play itself, the mournful mood is rudely dispelled with a rowdy kind of vaudeville on a peasant’s lot.
All the performers, and DHM’s enterprise in making this rare work known, are to be warmly applauded. There is much here to enjoy.'