“Il Farnace” by Diego Fasolis

Vivaldi’s opera “Il Farnace” is about the intensively dramatic story of love and hatred in the midst of the war, which was orchestrated by I Barocchisti under the direction of Diego Fasolis.

This opera begins during the war where King of Pontus, Farnace is fighting against invading Roman army. When he thought the defeat is inevitable, before he goes back to fighting, he makes his wife, Tamiri vow to commit double suicide with their young son as to avoid torturous captivity.

Tamiri couldn’t kill her son so she hides him in the royal tomb and tries to kill herself. She is captured by Roman army when she discovers that her own mother, Berenice, Queen of Cappadocia with her forces is on the side of Roman army to finish off Farnace.

Berenice has the venomous hatred against Farnace because her husband and son were brutally killed by his father and he stole her daughter, Tamiri by marring her. Berenice offers Roman emperor, Pompeo the half of her kingdom if he kills Farnace. Her hatred for him is so furious that she also wants to kill her only grandson, which troubles civilized Pompeo. Later in the opera, he often negotiates fair judgment with her blind fury.

Berenice gives order to destroy the royal tomb, which is stopped by Tamir. She lets the child out and begs her own mother for his life. She cries out in despair when she gets rejected coldly by both her mother and husband, who witnessed the child being alive after he was told otherwise.

Meanwhile, Farnace’s sister, Selinda who is practical and strong-willed surrenders herself to Roman army and asks for protection. Pompeo’s perfect, Aquilio and Berenice’s captain, Gilade fall madly in love with her beauty. She carefully makes strategy to use their affections to save her brother’s power.

In the last desperate attempt, Farnace sneaks into Roman army camp to kill Berenice and Pompeo but he gets captured. Tamiri tells him that she saved their son’s life against his will because of her love for him, which softens his heart and he decides to put their fate in gods’ hands.

At the highly intensive Hollywood style climax scene, everyone is at everyone’s throats including the child’s with their own swords and dagger, after Gliade and Salinda’s armed men forced themselves into the scene.

Farnace resolutely throws his sword at Berenice’s feet and tells her to kill him. Upon seen this, Berenice confesses that the hatred in her died and wishes to make peace.

Along with Marc Minkowski’s orchestration in Handel’s “Ariodante”, I fell in love with Diego Fasolis’ orchestration in Handel’s “Faramondo” which is the most refined orchestra sounds I’ve ever listened to. His orchestra sounds have incredibly beautiful textures in spite of the fact that his music is often highly agile, speedy and intensive.

He brings so much Handelian refinement to Vivaldi. His Vivaldi is de-cafe Vivaldi with the best flavor. I don’t think he quiet captures the spontaneous sparks of Vivaldi completely as he did with Handel’s wonderfully, but still, he creates the most beautiful orchestra music.

He also picks highly talented singers with most beautiful voices. All the singers he chose for this opera are very skillful and powerful. 

Countertenor, Max Emanuel Cencic sung the title role. I also fell in love with his voice in “Faramondo” where he sung amazingly.

According to the short bio I read, he was very early bloomer. He gained the first public attention by singing the soprano singers’ Everest aria, Mozart’s Queen of Night aria when he was only 6 years old on TV (it must be fearsome thing to behold). He was also famous soloist in prestigious Vienna’s boys choir.

There are number of recordings from his boy’s choir days on YouTube. He had the heaven given amazing boy soprano voice with exceptional singing talent. The voice like he had, it must be very hard to say goodbye after going though puberty. After the onset of voice change, he trained to become countertenor.

His countertenor voice is very different from his childhood voice. It has full texture at mezzo-soprano range with illumines gorgeous sounds and powerful force. His technique is amazing. He always sings notes with fullness and firmness at such precision. He also sings Mozart and Rossini wonderfully. His voice talent shines specially when he sings big scale music including slow dramatic number like “Gelido in ogni vena" in this opera.

Mezzo-soprano, Mary Ellen Nesi who sung Berenice is the next powerful singer. Her voice sounds like light finer soprano and yet, her singing in this opera is very fiery and powerful.

Mezzo-soprano, Ann Hellenberg who sung Selinda also sung Ptolomy in Handel’s heart wrenching opera, “Tolomeo”. She has very clear beautiful decisive voice with bits of muscularity. Her voice texture has the certain addictive quality. 

Soprano, Karina Gauvin sung the castrato role of Gilade. She also sung Ptolomy’s wife in “Tolomeo” along with Ann Hellenberg. I previously complained about her lack of expressiveness in “Tolomeo” and “Alcina” both directed by Alan Curtis. But in this production, she’s impressively highly expressive, which made her naturally jewel-like rich beautiful voice radiate more.

Mezzo-soprano, Ruxandra Donose sung Farnace’s wife, Tamiri. Her singing had wonderful amount of dramatic weight.

The two tenors, Daniel Behle (Pompeo) and Emiliano Gonzalez Tolo (Aquilio) had beautifully rich voices. Especially Emiliano Gonzalez Tolo had beautiful romantic texture in his voice.

“Bajazet” by Fabio Bindi

This production of Vivaldi’s opera “Bajazet” was orchestrated by Europe Garante under the conduction of Fabio Biondi.

The basic story line of the opera is that the Ottoman Sultan, Bajazet was defeated by his brutal enemy, Tamerlane, Tartar emperor in war and he was captured along with his daughter, Asteria.

Under the captivity, Bajazet knows he’ll die soon and his only and desperate hope is his daughter, Asteria’s well-being. He’s ready to die any moment for the purpose. And he knows that she and the Grecian prince, Andronicus who is Tamerlane’s alley are in love. He thinks highly of Andronicus to whose hand he puts his daughter’s fate.

Tamerlane falls in love with Asteria and dumps his fiancé, Irene. And he tries to make Andronicus marry her instead, with the reward of rulership for his service.  Proud Irene is angry and heart-broken.

Asteria and Andronicus both mistake each other’s actions and intentions and during the process, in desperate attempt, she tries to kill Tamerlane twice.  The last assassination attempt was foiled by Irene whose action makes Tamerlane to recognize her love for him.

In the end, Bajazet kills himself whose action and Asteria’s tragic state resonate enough for Tamerlane to pardon her and Andronicus to be married.

Fabio Biondi’s Vivaldi is very mature; muscularly sound tight and highly polished. I usually prefer little bit of colors in my Vivaldi than he puts into but his music is so good, I just don’t care.

The title role of Bajazet was sung by bass-baritone, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo. He is the best singer in this production in terms of emotional intensity. His aria “Dov’e la figlia” is emotionally highly charged and you just could feel the anguish of the father who’s trying to find his daughter, Asteria. 

Asteria was sung by contralto, Marijana Mijanovic. There were moments when the tears welled up in my eyes while she’s singing this character and the same time, I was having hard time tuning with her emotionally, as the same way as with her Floridante in Handel’s opera “Floridante”.

Tamerlane was sung by countertenor, David Daniels. Both him and Marijana Mijanovic are good singers whom I’m personally fond of. But often, I have also difficulty connecting with his singing emotionally.  His voice is so sweet in this production and it was hard to feel the dramatic psychology of the character.

Andronicus was sung by beautiful mezzo-soprano, Elina Garanca. I’d never thought her voice is suited for Baroque when I heard her singing non-Baroque repertoire, but actually she impressed me with the voice of light agility and beautiful elegance. The character she plays is emotionally torn and she expressed these ups and down of the various emotional shades very well. 

Irene was sung by mezzo-soprano, Vivica Genaux whose voice I cannot listen to without picturing huge watermelon. She’s highly technical and amazing singer with powerful voice. She’s thought highly specially with upbeat coloratura arias like “Qual querriero in campo armato”, but personally I love when she sings mellow arias like “Sposa, son disprezzata” in this opera or “Bel piacer ch'è la vendetta” in Vivaldi’s “Ercole Sul Termondo”.

Idaspe was sung by my favorite soprano, Patrizia Ciofi. Whenever she sings, her amazing vocal flexibility always mesmerizes me. She possesses one of the most flexible vocal cords I know.

According to the production note, when Vivaldi wrote this opera in 1735, the Venetian opera like his style which had dominated the world from the beginning of the opera history was thought as old fashion and about to be taken over by the fashionable Neapolitan opera.

In this climate, Vivaldi’s wrote this political opera “Bajezet” also as his operatic political testament. In Baroque era, infringement of copyright was an alien concept and your work being stolen was actually thought to be complement.

So Vivaldi wrote his own compositions for the dying tragic hero, Bajezet and his allies (Asteria, Idaspe) while using the stolen Neapolitan composers works for brutal enemy, Tamerlane and his allies (Irene, Andronicus) as the political gesture.

The Neapolitan opera took over the world and Vivaldi died in 1741 in obscurity, leaving the study room-full of his large works. This is one of the reasons why I’m very protective of him as many Vivaldi opera fans.

Vivaldi’s great hero, Bajazet died but his daughter carries the torch for him. And to us, almost 300 years later, this opera sounds just like the feast of such musical treasure as his other works.

“Dov’e la figlia?” by Ildebrando D'Arcangelo

“Sposa, son disprezzata” by Vivica Genaux

“Anche il mar par” by Patrizia Ciofi

“Spesso tra vaghe rose” by Elina Garanca

“Barbaro traditor” by David Daniels

“Cruda sorta” by David Daniels

“La cervetta timidetta” by Marijana Mijanovic

“Nasce rosa” by Patrizia Ciofi