“Griselda” by Vivaldi

I listened to Vivaldi’s opera “Griselda” conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi.

Though Spinosi’s orchestration is always very crispy, this production is the crispiest opera by him I know so far. And not only his orchestration, all the six singers in this opera have also clean crispy voices, so the whole album have the feel of drinking sparkling Champaign.

Contralto, Marie-Nichole Lemieux sang the title role. In “Orlando Furioso”, she was Hulk while her role in this opera is a tragic queen so she showcased the feminine suave beauty of her voice at full extent. While I’ve listened to this opera, I reaffirmed how truly gorgeous the texture of her voice is.  There are always moments when she’s singing, I have to stop what I’m doing and just listen. Her voice has such power to grasp listener’s full attention.

This opera as the whole does not have the lavishness of “Orlando Furioso” or “Ercole Sul Termondonte“ and its arias are not as memorable as the arias in these two operas. But it is filled with the arias which are highly demanding, vocally difficult and amazingly coloratura. According to the production notes, they were so difficult for some of the original singers so Vivaldi had to adjust his original scores.

Especially Vivaldi wrote the highly demanding arias for the roles of Ottone sang by Simone Kermes and Costanza sang by Veronica Cangemi.

The role of Ottone is semi-bad guy.  Simone Kermes has beautiful and very flexible soprano voice with porcelain serine quality (she looks like a wild red haired punk rocker on some of the videos and if you just turn off the sound, she really looks like singing punk rock instead of opera arias, with amazing voice).  I thought her voice is almost too femininely beautiful to sing a bad guy. But somehow Vivaldi wrote the most difficult and most coloratura arias in this opera for this role.

Soprano, Veronica Cangemi also has the most difficult arias such as “Agitata Da Due Venti” which is more like mezzo-soprano piece. But she sang it perfectly and almost effortlessly. I also listened to this aria sang by Vivica Genaux and Cecilia Bartoli. Though they both are impressive technical singers and much more famous, I love Veronica’s rendition better because she sounded more unforced, natural and feminine.

I was very impressed by her singing in “Orlando Furioso”. And the more I’ve listened to her, the more I’ve become to love her voice and her singing techniques. How she interprets and develops her arias have similar naturalness and dramatic skills as Jaroussky’s. They bring moments of psychological realisms and sensitive nuances of emotional layers to their arias.

The rest of the singers, Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor), Stefano Ferrari (tenor) and Lestyn Davies (countertenor, also sung Otto in “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” by Emanuel Haim very well) sung wonderfully.

On the surface, Vivaldi’s music might sound cheesy, hyper and lacking musical depth, but I would say that his music is more like rough gemstones. For instance, the quality of Handel’s music is refined and steadfast so no matter who performs them, it does not affect the quality of the music itself. But Vivaldi’s music is very depending upon performers’ – not only singers but also instrumentalists – abilities to express, in order to extract its rich and true beautiful colors. When in the hands of wonderful musicians, his music shins its true exuberance.

Vede Orgoglisio L'Onda  (Simone Kermes)

Agitata Da Due Venti (Veronica Cangemi)

Dal Tribunal D'Amore (Philippe Jaroussky)

Ho Il Cor Gia Lacero (Marie-Nichole Lemieux)

Tu Vorresti Col Tuo Pianto (Stefano Ferrari)

Sonno, Se Pur Sei Sonno (Marie-Nichole Lemieux)

Estinguere Verrei La Fiamma (Philippe Jaroussky)

Scocca Dardi L'Altero Tuo Ciglio (Simone Kermes)

Ritorno A Lusingarmi (Veronica Cangemi)

La Rondinella Amante (Lestyn Davies)

Ombre Vane, Ingiusti Orrori (Veronica Cangemi)