Giulio Cesare by Giovanni Antonini

I watched this production of the Handel’s opera on the website of French TV Arte. It was streaming video but my Internet connection was not so streaming with lots of stopping and skipping. Therefore, my review below might need adjustment accordingly in future.

This production has dazzling casts. All the singers sang wonderfully with each had strong individuality.

I prefer soprano or high mezzo-soprano to sing the vocally highly demanding role of Cleopatra. Cecilia Bartoli’s very Mediterranean mezzo-soprano voice can be heavy or low for this type of role. Her singing techniques are always very impressive with great range and capacity and the same token, they could be forceful, raw and simply too much when singing should be more natural and unforced.

I listened to some of her Cleopatra before and I was worry about all these things. But as whole, they came force as expected but also she showed wonderful lightness and great sensibility especially aria like “V’adoro, pupille” (yes, you better close your eyes while listening to this wonderful rendition.) As always, I had to be amazed and impressed with her ability to create profound vocal drama in some of the arias.

Andreas Scholl as Cesare was wonderful but somehow his singing was little less magnificent than when he sang in his previous production. The clarity of his voice felt diminished little.

I adore both Anne Sofie von Otter and Philippe Jaroussky as singers. But I prefer much fuller and lower voice ranges for these roles than theirs. Simply Otter’s light voice couldn’t capture the weight of her role.  But nevertheless, they sang their roles wonderfully specially their duet was very emotional. (And watching these two singers I most admire singing together simply tickles my soft spot.)

My favorite Cleopatra’s crazy half-brother, Christophe Dumaux who sang Tolomeo was in his best condition. His Tolomeo is always exciting to watch and listen. This character must be the most fun to play with. This time, he looked like a dangerous gang leader with ancient tattoos and bladed hairstyle with snakeskin jacket and pants.  This time, he had less action and more masturbation (!)

The rest of the singers such as Ruben Drole, Jochen Kowalski and Peter Kalman sang very well.

This is one of the best operas with gorgeous castings, so how it could be ended up with such cheap stage direction? I felt so sorry for the singers who have to take these stupid acting directions seriously. Especially when Ann Sofie von Otter had to put her head into the mouth of the giant cheap toy crocodile or the fake cheap toy snake Philippe Jaroussky had to handle more than Lorraine Hunt Lieberson once did. And Cecilia Bartorini had to act sexy while riding on the rocket like Dr. Strange Love when she only looked a cheap prostitute.

I thought Peter Sellers is worst stage director but now he has competitor. At least Peter Sellers has sharp satire to his cheapness, but this similar stage direction set in 50’s somewhere in oil rich region does not even have it despite of the facts that it has some current political inputs such as Sesto as suicide bomber, hooding of prisoner Cleopatra, oil dealings and rolling military tanks.

But more than anything else, the biggest complaint I had with this production is the orchestration by Giovanni Antonini & Il Giardino Armonico. It was rather subtle and not very lively orchestration with little colors. I don't know how could these individually strong singers ended up with somehow such weak orchestration?

L’Orfeo by Jordi Savall

When I watched some videos from this production on YouTube, they sounded and looked little cheap. But this is true: you should never ever judge whole production by a couple of excerpt videos because this production as whole has the first rate quality.

This Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo was orchestrated by Le Concert des Nations and conducted by Jordi Savall. His orchestration is rich and sophisticated. All the singers are uniformly very good. Especially Sara Mingardo as the messenger stands out. The depth in her singing is amazing. I was also very impressed by the beauty of Adriana Fernandez’s voice as Proserpina.

Even though this is top class production, there are a few minor flaws, or more personal dislikes. The old-fashioned costumes and the stage settings are outdated. The singers who sung Orfeo and Eurydice are very good singers but they sang as they scraped the surface when the two main characters should have more depth. The orchestration is wonderfully rich but almost little too Classical and little too sophisticated for my taste.

Even considering these, this is still very good production.

L’Olimpiade by Rinaldo Alessandrini

This production of Vivaldi’s opera L’Olimpiade was orchestrated by Concerto Italiano and conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini.

The story of love, friendship and Olympics in this upbeat opera is great theme for a teenage movie.

The basic storyline is that young prince, Licida asks his best friend, Megacle who is talented athlete to compete in Olympics under his name. Megacle later learns that the award for the winner is the marriage to King’s daughter, Aristea. The thing Licida didn’t know was that Megacle and Aristea were lovers before being separated by his parents. Megacle suffers between his love for Aristea and his friendship for Licida because he swore his loyalty to Licida by whom his life was once saved …… .

Vivaldi filled this opera with many of his best arias.

Just like his Farnace conducted by Diego Fasolis, Rinaldo Alessandrini’s Vivaldi is also best de-café Vivaldi. Their music is not flashy or splashy or sparkling comparing to other Vivaldi conductors’. Their music is very mature, rich and highly polished.  Alessandrini’s orchestration also has the very interesting texture. It has the saturating shadow of summer afternoon shade. I’d never had the texture from any other conductors before. 

Contrasting to near perfection of his orchestration, his singers were not so strong in their singings. His orchestration had high quality that I found much less in the singers.

Soprano, Roberta Invernizzi sang the castrato role of Megacle. Her very beautiful light voice is like butterfly or balloon, which has neither weight nor depth. She sang as she’s reading a textbook with the rhythmic accents. Her role has number of virtuosic arias but as much as beautiful voice she has, they didn’t sound as virtuosic as they should. 

Contralto, Sonia Prina sang Aristea. She has deep, male-like decisive voice with good singing technique. This role gets least amount of good aria. Even then, she sang with neutral expression.

However, their duet “Ne’ giorni tuoi felici” was beautiful and emotionally heart felt.

Contralto, Sara Mingardo sang Licida. I thought her voice is rather dark and too thoughtful to sing this happy-go-lucky guy role but nevertheless, she sang her part really well. Especially she sang Vivaldi’s wonderful aria “Gemo in un punto e fremo” wonderfully.

Mezzo-soprano, Marianna Kulikova sang Argene. Her singing had emotional input but as the same way with Roberta Invernizzi, she also sang her arias with the monotone rhythmic accents. 

Soprano, Laura Giordano sang the castrato role of Licida’s uncle, Aminta. Her voice is much lighter and brighter than Roberta Invernizzi’s. Her voice also doesn’t have weight or depth and sounded almost too girlishly childish to sing the male guardian figure. Vivaldi often wrote highly technical virtuosic arias for side male roles such as Aminta. Laura Giordano rather sang such aria “Siam navi all’onde algenti” better but yet, it was not virtuosic enough.

Baritone, Riccardo Novaro sang Clisten. He has very good mature baritone voice and he sang his role very well.