DONIZETTI L'Ange de Nisida (Elder)

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Gaetano Donizetti

Genre:

Opera

Label: Opera Rara

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 157

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: ORC58

ORC58. DONIZETTI L'Ange de Nisida (Elder)

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
L'Ange de Nisida Gaetano Donizetti, Composer
David Kim, Leone de Casaldi, Tenor
Evgeny Stravinsky, Monk; Father Superior, Bass
Gaetano Donizetti, Composer
Joyce El-Khoury, Countess Sylvia de Linares, Soprano
Laurent Naouri, Don Gaspar, Bass-baritone
Mark Elder, Conductor
Royal Opera House Chorus, Covent Garden
Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden
Vito Priante, Den Fernand d'Aragon, Baritone
There’s a little bit about the background to The Angel of Nisida (an island off Naples) in my article on Opera Rara in the July 2018 issue of Gramophone. It’s not so much a rediscovery as a clever reconstruction of an opera that was never completed, the first of the concert performances from which this recording is taken being the world premiere. It was commissioned by the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris, where the French version of Lucia di Lammermoor was performed to great acclaim in August 1839. Donizetti set to work, incorporating material from his unfinished opera Adelaide; but the theatre went bankrupt in May 1840 and that was that. The composer reused nearly half the material in La favorite (December 1840), his adaptation overlaying the original manuscript. The task of assembling and creating a performing version of L’ange de Nisida has been magnificently achieved by the musicologist Candida Mantica, with Martin Fitzpatrick completing, composing or orchestrating where necessary. The booklet articles by Roger Parker and Mantica herself are invaluable, though both understate the similarities of character and action between L’ange and La favorite (for Sylvia, Leone and Don Fernand read Léonor, Fernand and Alphonse XI); while Mantica makes a complicated story even more confusing by mentioning the rehearsal period as running from February to May 1839, when clearly the year was 1840.

Leone is mutually in love with Sylvia (the angel of the title), not knowing that she is the unwilling mistress of Don Fernand, the King of Naples. To placate the Church, the king agrees that Sylvia should be married off, the husband to be rewarded and packed off abroad without her. Leone is deputed to escort her to Rome; the situation unravels when Leone enthusiastically offers to be not merely the escort but the husband. Sylvia is appalled by what she takes to be Leone’s mercenary behaviour; Leone is equally appalled when he discovers the truth about Sylvia and the king. He retires to a monastery; Sylvia, now aware that his love was true, seeks him out but dies as they are reconciled.

There’s a faint anticipation here of the ending to La forza del destino. Donizetti’s plot is more credible than Verdi’s, just about, though ‘drained of my strength by sorrow’ does not seem sufficient reason for Sylvia’s death. What makes the opera unusual are the shafts of comedy. Don Gaspar, the king’s chamberlain, is a buffo bass: his patter song, ‘Et vous Mesdames’, turns up as ‘Un foco insolito’ in Don Pasquale (1843), and at one point he amusingly fears the fate that befell Peter Abelard. The king is an interesting figure who genuinely loves Sylvia and is devastated at the thought of losing her.

Mark Elder conducts this attractive score with love. There’s an irresistible bounce to the lighter passages and he provides sensitive, understated support for the characters’ emotional outpourings, with some beautiful playing from the horns. Laurent Naouri characterises Don Gaspar very well, despite not being in best voice. There is no aria for the king, but Vito Priante’s forthright delivery of ‘Ô mon ange que j’implore’ in the Act 2 finale is surely an indication of future greatness as a Verdi baritone. David Junghoon Kim, accomplished throughout, is particularly fine in the introspective ‘Hélas! Envolez-vous, beaux songes!’; it’s followed by a beautifully shaped phrase in the bassoons and lower strings. Joyce El Khoury is quite wonderful, with a virtuoso account of her Act 3 aria, from the regret of ‘Frais ombrage’ to the inappropriately skittish cabaletta which the editors have adapted from an addition for Paris to the score of Maria di Rohan (‘Benigno il cielo arridere’). This labour of love is not going to convert the sceptics but it will be welcomed and enjoyed by anyone attuned to the delights of Donizetti.

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