"Farewell to hope": Baldassare Galuppi's L'Olimpiade

DVD cover for Baldassare Galuppi's L'Olimpiade (The Olympiad, 1747), with Romina Basso as Megacle (left) and Ruth Rosique as Aristea (right). Image source: Internet Archive

The 18th-century Italian composer Baldassare Galuppi is far less well known today than his contemporaries Antonio Vivaldi and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. The passage of time and changing musical styles caused Galuppi's work to fall out of fashion after his death in 1785, and until recently it had rarely been revived. But in the 1750s he was one of the most famous opera composers not only in Italy but throughout Europe. And his rise to international fame began with a crisis in the professional life of another composer: George Frideric Handel.

Handel's 30-year career of composing and producing Italian opera in London ground to a permanent halt with the failure of Deidamia in January 1741; at age 56 he was faced with having to reinvent himself. (For how he did so, please see the post Every Valley: Handel's Messiah.) You might think that if Handel couldn't make Italian opera succeed in the British capital, no one could. Remarkably, though, the failure of Deidamia was not the end of Italian opera in London, even temporarily. For the 1741–42 season Charles Sackville, the Earl of Middlesex, gathered a group of subscribers and brought the 35-year-old Galuppi to London.

Portrait of Baldassare Galuppi, artist unknown, 1751. Image source: Sotheby's

Probably agents or friends of Lord Middlesex in Venice had heard Galuppi's two most recent serious operas: Oronte (1740) and Berenice (1741); it's also possible that Middlesex himself heard Galuppi's work when he travelled in Italy in 1737–38. In any case, Galuppi was invited to London and stayed for two seasons. In that time he supervised the production of 11 operas, two of which in each season were his new compositions. The first, Penelope, ran for nine performances at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket between December 1741 and February 1742, while Scipione in Cartagine (Scipio in Carthage) opened on 2 April 1742 and alternated with two other operas by different composers until it closed the season on 1 June.

Perhaps the most significant opera Galuppi introduced to London in his first season was Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade, with a libretto by Pietro Metastasio and music by several composers including Pergolesi, who had died in 1736. Meraspe was one of the operas alternating with Galuppi's Scipione in the spring of 1742.

Title page of the libretto of Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade, adapted by Paolo Rolli from Pietro Metastasio's original libretto, 1742. Image source: Gale Eighteenth Century Collections Online (subscription required)

Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade was the first time Pergolesi's music was heard on a London stage; it had eight performances before the season ended for the summer, and was so popular that a collection of The Favorite Songs in the Opera call'd Meraspe, o[vero] L'Olimpiade was published by the London firm of John Walsh.

Title page of Favorite Songs in the Opera call'd Meraspe, o[vero] L'Olimpiade, Printed for I. [John] Walsh, London, 1742. From the collection of the University of Western Ontario. Image source: Internet Archive

The first two arias in Favorite Songs were by Pergolesi. "Tremende oscuri atroci" (Loathsome, dreadful, dark and drear) and "Se cerca se dice" (If she seeks, if she speaks) were both sung in Act II by the soprano castrato Angelo Maria Monticelli in the role of Meraspe, who in most versions of L'Olimpiade was named Megacle. Music historian Charles Burney wrote of Monticelli's performance that "the union of poetry and Music, expression and gesture, seldom have had a more powerful effect on an English audience." [1]

Print of castrato Angelo Maria Monticelli by John Faber Jr after an Andrea Casali mezzotint, published by John Bowles, London, circa 1740–1780. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D14314, CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0

Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade sparked widespread interest in Pergolesi's music in London; over the next decade his reputation continued to grow until he was probably the most famous Italian composer outside of Italy. As Grove Music Online states, "The almost universal fame he attained posthumously represented a new phenomenon in music history." [2]

In his second London season Galuppi composed Enrico, which became a hit and ran for 17 performances after premiering on 1 January 1743, and Sirbace, which ran for nine performances and closed the season. (In comparison, two years previously Handel's Deidamia had managed only three performances before closing.) A collection of arias from Enrico was also later published by Walsh.

Title page of Favorite Songs in the Opera Call'd Enrico by Sigr. Galuppi. Printed for I. [John] Walsh, London, ?1744. [3] From the collection of Westminster City Libraries and Archives. Image source: Wikipedia

Instrumental parts for his overture for Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade were published along with those for the overtures of Enrico, Penelope, and Scipione in Cartagine, as well as two overtures from Porpora operas produced in London in the 1730s.

Title page from Six Overtures in Seven Parts. . .from the Late Operas Compos'd by Sigr. Hasse, Vinci, Galuppi & Porpora, Printed for I. [John] Walsh, London, 1748. [4] From the collection of the University of Western Ontario. Image source: Internet Archive

Although Enrico was a major success and Galuppi's other operas did respectably, at the end of the 1742–43 London season the Venetian composer returned to Italy. Galuppi's departure from London was likely made easier because he had a prestigious job waiting for him back in Venice: while in London he was formally on leave from his position as teacher and composer for the women of the Ospedale dei Mendicanti. [5]

Lord Middlesex would continue to produce Italian opera at the King's Theatre through the autumn of 1748 despite financial losses, a 1744 lawsuit he filed against his own subscribers, and a 1748 lawsuit filed against him by Monticelli for unpaid salary. Among those who replaced Galuppi as music director and chief composer were Giovanni Battista Lampugnani in the 1743–44 season, and after a year-long lawsuit hiatus, Christoph Willibald Gluck in the 1745–46 season. In Grove Music Online Carole Taylor writes that "Middlesex was more than usually susceptible to opera's attractions, but to his love of music and social distinction there was added an unfortunate mixture of recalcitrance, impetuosity and managerial ineptitude. . .The Italian Opera, in decline in the 1730s, struggled through the 1740s largely as a result of his energies, and it may have owed its further decline to his incompetence." [6]

"The Old Opera House": The Italian Opera House [King's Theatre], Haymarket, prior to the fire of June 1789. Pencil drawing and watercolor by William Capon, c. 1788. Image source: Victoria & Albert Museum S4169-2009

Back in Italy as the decade of the 1740s continued, Galuppi wrote sacred music for the Ospedale and adapted comic operas for Venetian theatres. He also composed opera seria setting the libretti of Pietro Metastasio. Every composer of opera seria set libretti by Metastasio because they were so well-written and -constructed. Between 1723 and 1843, Metastasio's 27 opera seria libretti were set to music a thousand times by more than 300 composers. [7]

L'Olimpiade was one of Metastasio's most popular libretti, set at least 57 times between 1733 and 1815. Perhaps inspired by the reception of the Meraspe, o L'Olimpiade pasticcio in London, Galuppi composed his own version of L'Olimpiade for Milan, which was given as the first opera in the 1747–48 Carnival season.

Title page of the libretto of L'Olimpiade from the Teatro Regio Ducale, Milan, with music composed by Baldassare Galuppi, performed during the Carnival season of 1747–48. Color adjusted from the source. Image source: Internet Archive

The backstory is given in the libretto's Argument, here taken from a 1770 London pasticcio of L'Olimpiade with "Music by several Eminent Masters":

Clistenes, king of Sicyon, ordered his son Phylinthus, an infant, to be exposed to the sea; the Oracle having foretold, that he should attempt to kill him; and [after the passage of two decades] refused Aristea, his daughter, to Megacles the Athenian, on account of the hatred he bore to Athens. Megacles on a journey, having been set upon and over-powered by ruffians, was rescued by Licidas, the supposed son of the king of Crete; whereupon, through gratitude and affection, there grew a strict [i.e., close] friendship between them.

Licida (giving him and the other characters the Italian forms of their names) learns that King Clistene is offering his daughter Aristea in marriage to the winner of the Olympic Games. To gain the bride, Licida asks Megacle, a renowned athlete, to compete in his stead and under his name. He doesn't realize that Megacle himself loves Aristea, and Megacle doesn't enlighten him. Owing his life to Licida, Megacle feels that honor requires him to do as his friend asks.

Singer Angelo Maria Monticelli as Megacle. From Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni?, Costumes of the opera L'Olimpiade by [Pietro] Metastasio and [Johann Adolf] Hasse, 1756, Plate 7. Hoftheater Dresden, premiere 16 February 1756. Artist: Francesco Ponte. From the collection of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Image credit: Regine Richter. Image source: Deutsche Fotothek

In Crete Licida had been betrothed to Argene. She has followed Licida to the Peloponnesus disguised as a shepherdess in order to avoid a forced marriage decreed by the king of Crete to a man she doesn't love: none other than the Athenian champion Megacle. In the countryside near Sicyon she encounters Aristea, and the two women are soon sharing their sorrows.

With its coincidences, silences, disguises, cross-matched couples, and long-lost son, this plot sounds highly contrived on paper. But onstage it works remarkably well, as each of the major characters finds themselves in a succession of situations in which they face an intense conflict, either an inner dilemma or a confrontation with another character. And each emotionally fraught situation gives rise to an aria of sorrow, anger, hope, defiance, despair, or love.

At the end of Act I, Megacle meets with Aristea as he is preparing to leave for the Games. She is overjoyed at seeing him, but to her bewilderment Megacle bids her a sorrowful farewell. The duet "Ne' giorni tuoi felici" from the video of the Teatro Malibran production, with Romina Basso as Megacle and Ruth Rosique as Aristea:

https://youtu.be/pIrTm4JVaSg?t=4217 [duet ends at 1:18:41]

Megacle: Ne' giorni tuoi felici Ricordati di me. Aristea: Perchè cosi mi dici, Anima mia, perche? Megacle: Taci, bell' idol mio. Aristea: Parla, mio dolce amor. Megacle: Ah, che parlando Aristea: Ah, che tacendo À due: Oh dio! Tu mi traffiggi il cor. Aristea: (Veggio languir chi adoro, Ne intendo il suo languir.) Megacle: (Di gelosia mi moro, E non lo posso dir.) À due: Chi mai provò di questo Affanno più funesto Più barbaro dolor.

Megacle: In your happy future days, remember me. Aristea: Why are you saying this to me, my love, why? Megacle: Ask me not, my beautiful one. Aristea: Then speak to me, my sweet love. Megacle: If only I could speak— Aristea: What chilling silence— Together: O God, my heart is breaking. Aristea: (I see my beloved is suffering, but I don't understand why.) Megacle: (I die of jealousy, And I cannot say anything.) Together: Who has ever felt more deadly anguish, more barbaric pain.

Metastasio felt that Galuppi's music did not always ideally reflect the sense of the words, and indeed one could imagine this music accompanying a scene of reunion rather than parting. This scene, of course, is both.

In the Faber print of Monticelli above, he is portrayed holding the music for the phrase "E non lo posso dir" (And I cannot say anything) from this duet:

Detail of the print of castrato Angelo Maria Monticelli by John Faber Jr. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D14314

The print, published in London, is based on a mezzotint by Andrea Casali, who was living in London in 1742. This suggests that the music depicted may be from the pasticcio Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade. The music in the print shows a descending phrase that does not match the scores for this duet in prior settings of Metastasio's libretto by Antonio Caldara (1733), Antonio Vivaldi (1734), Pergolesi (1735), or Leonardo Leo (1737). Making a musical identification even more difficult, I noticed an apparent error in the musical representation. In the key signature I believe that a B flat rather than a D flat should be indicated. Also, the first word in the line does not look like "E" or "e" ("and," in Italian). There may be additional errors introduced in Casali's original mezzotint or in Faber's rendition of it for his print, and so the phrase as depicted may not accurately represent any version sung by Monticelli.

The closest match I have found is to Galuppi's 1747 score:

Music for the phrase "e non lo posso dir" from Galuppi's L'Olimpiade, 1747. Image source: Baldassare Galuppi, L’Olimpiade, introd. by Howard Mayer Brown. Garland, 1978. Facsimile score reproduced from a manuscript in the Conservatorio di musica Giuseppe Verdi, Milan. From the collection of the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library, University of California Berkeley.

The music in the Faber print may be intended to represent Monticelli's vocal ornamentation of this phrase. Might Galuppi have written the duet for the 1742 Meraspe pasticcio, and then reused it in his 1747 full setting of L'Olimpiade? Below I've mapped the two phrases on the same staff; the larger notes and thicker lines represent the pitch and relative duration values from Galuppi's score, the smaller notes and thinner lines those from the print's musical fragment, and the red arrows indicate the five notes that exactly match in pitch.

This is speculation, but the pitches of the two phrases map reasonably well, certainly for the first half of the phrase ("e non lo") and the syllable "-so"; they diverge on "pos-" (Galuppi has two 16th notes descending from F to D, while the print has a 16th and two 32nd notes descending from C to B flat to A) and "dir" (Galuppi writes a C, the print has an A). I also note that both phrases seem to have one and a half beats per measure. Those who are more musically knowledgeable than I am are invited to investigate further.

As the video of the Megacle-Aristea duet demonstrates, the playing and singing on the DVD recording from the Teatro Malibran are excellent. There are especially strong vocal and acting performances by the four principals: Basso, Rosique, Franziska Gottwald (Licida), and Roberta Invernizzi (Argene).

The production, though, frequently undermines the singers. Director Dominique Poulange, herself an actress, sometimes places singers behind scrims, and too often her blocking sends the singers into shadows (it's as though she and lighting designer Fabio Barettin never consulted one another about where the singers would be standing). In one scene in Act III, Aristea is placed behind a scrim during the entirety of her lovely 9-minute aria "Caro son tuo cosi" (Dearest, I am yours), while in front of the scrim Argene and Megacle are sitting motionless and staring fixedly and sorrowfully into space. Shouldn't that positioning have been reversed? [8]

Francesco Zito's handsome costumes suggest a cross between Ancient Greece and the 18th century, and are especially flattering on Ruth Rosique. But his sets are often puzzling. A gray slab looking a little like the monolith from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 on its side appears onstage in Act I during scenes set in a woodland, a garden and the countryside. Is it supposed to be a very symmetrical rock? Equally odd, in the first part of Act II a three-foot by twelve-foot slot appears across the middle of the stage which then magically disappears midway through the act, the only hint that we've changed location. (Perhaps it is supposed to represent a stream? Supporting that interpretation, Argene sits on the edge and dangles her legs in it.) In Act III the slot reappears, this time representing Licida's prison—but it's only thigh-deep, and Licida could step out of it any time he pleased. Abstract sets can work, but (like all sets) they have to enhance the action rather than distract from it.

This video remains, so far as I am aware, the only full recording of Galuppi's L'Olimpiade. Although the production is at times problematic, the excellent cast and orchestra are strong recommendations to anyone interested in 18th-century Italian opera.

Credits

Work: L'Olimpiade, libretto by Pietro Metastasio, 1733, music by Baldassare Galuppi, 1747.

Cast: Romina Basso (Megacle), Ruth Rosique (Aristea), Franziska Gottwald (Licida), Roberta Invernizzi (Argene), Mark Tucker (Clistene), Furio Zanasi (Alcandro), Filippo Adami (Aminta)

Musicians: Venice Baroque Orchestra conducted by Andrea Marcon. Score preparation and revision by Clarie Genewein and Andrea Marcon.

Production: Teatro Malibran, Venice. Stage direction: Dominique Poulange; video direction: Tiziano Manoni. Set and costume designer: Francesco Zito. Lighting designer: Fabio Barettin.

Video: Dynamic 33545. Recorded 2006, issued 2008.

---

1. Charles Burney, A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, Vol. 2, Dover Publications reprint, 1957, p. 840; originally published 1789. The other arias included in The Favorite Songs in the Opera Call'd Meraspe o L'Olimpiade were "Immagini dolente" (Painful thoughts) by Giuseppe Scarlatti, sung by tenor Angelo Maria Amorevoli in the role of King Clistene; "Superbo di me stesso" (Proud of myself) by Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, sung by Monticelli; "Per novo amor delira" (Smitten by a new love) by Leonardo Leo, sung by Lucia Panichi ("La Moscovita") in the role of Argene; and "Si mi lascia, o padre amato" (You leave me, beloved father) by Francesco Feo, sung by Caterina Visconti in the role of Aristea. Of note is that no arias sung by the castrato Giovanni Battista Andreoni in the secondo uomo role of Licida were included.
2. Helmut Hucke and Dale E. Monson. 2001. Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista. Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.21325 (subscription required)
3. The British Library catalog record for this collection of arias from Enrico states that it was published in 1744. However, it pretty clearly uses the same title page engraving plate as Favorite Songs in the Opera Call'd Meraspe, o L'Olimpiade seen above, with the opera title changed. The British Library catalog record for the Meraspe collection states that it was published in 1742. Galuppi was no longer in London in 1744, and so it would have been a curious time to bring out sheet music of his year-old opera; I wonder whether it was published instead in 1743, the year Enrico was staged.
4. Despite the claims of the title page, according to the catalog record on the Internet Archive the publication does not contain overtures by Johann Hasse or Leonardo Vinci. The catalog record also states that this publication was not issued until 1748, five years after Galuppi had left Britain. That timing also seems curious; perhaps it was issued a few years earlier?
5. The Mendicanti was one of the four large Venetian orphanages where women abandoned as infants were raised and trained as musicians. Performances by the women of the Ospedali were famous, and were a sought-after experience by international visitors to Venice.
6. Carole Taylor. 2002. Middlesex, Earl of. Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O903065 (subscription required)
7. Don Neville. 2001. Metastasio [Trapassi], Pietro. Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.53181 (subscription required)
8. In her DVD booklet notes, Claire Genewein mentions that the music for this aria was taken from one of the Walsh Favorite Songs collections, but it was not included in Meraspe o[overa] L'Olimpiade, nor in Volumes 1, 2, or 5 of Le delizie dell' opere: Being a Collection of all the Favourite Songs in Score, which is advertised on the cover of Favorite Songs.

Nymphs, shepherdesses, muses and lovers: Virginie Thomas

Virginie Thomas. Image credit: Studio Ledroit-Perrin. Image source: Les Heures Musicales de l’Abbaye de Lessay

Although my shelves (and coffee table, and stereo cabinet) are groaning with CDs, I recklessly continue to seek out new musical discoveries. And right now we are experiencing a flowering of French Baroque performances and recordings, as still-active period-instrument groups such as William Christie's Les Arts Florissants (approaching its 50th anniversary), Marc Minkowski's Les Musiciens du Louvre (approaching its 45th), Hervé Niquet's Le Concert Spirituel (next year celebrating its 40th), Christophe Rousset's Les Talens Lyriques (turning 35 this year) and Emmanuelle Haïm's Le Concert d'Astrée (entering its second quarter-century) are joined by the newer generations of ensembles and performers that they have nurtured.

Virginie Thomas is a French soprano who has performed and recorded with Christie, Rousset, and Vincent Dumestre's Le Poème Harmonique, but also with newer groups such as Raphaël Pichon's Pygmalion, Gaëtan Jarry's Ensemble Marguerite Louise, and Reinoud Van Mechelen's a nocte temporis. She has specialized, in the words of her artist's biography, in portraying "muses, nymphs, bergères and amoureuses."

In fact, her first recital album for the L'Encelade label is entitled Nymphes (L'Encelade ECL 2203, released in 2023), a program of airs sung by nymphs from the operas of Lully, Desmarest, Campra, Leclair and others.

Nymphes (ECL 2203). Image credit: Virginie Thomas. Image source: Presto Music

The goddess on the cover of Nymphes is apparently Virginie Thomas herself: the image is credited as Autoportrait d'une nymphe à la piscine [Self-portrait of a nymph at the pool]. In her booklet note Thomas writes that the idea for the album arose from concerts she gave as part of the open-air Dans Les Jardins de William Christie summer festival. Nymphs are minor (though, I was surprised to learn, not immortal) goddesses associated with nature that, Thomas writes, "have to cope with human problems (love, desire, jealousy, etc.), and this is something that makes them particularly appealing."

Appealing is the word for this album. On Nymphes Thomas is accompanied by a period-instrument chamber orchestra led by harpsichordist Béatrice Martin and violinist Emmanuel Resche-Caserta; in some works she is joined by sopranos Maud Gnidzaz and Juliette Perret and mezzo-soprano Anaïs Bertrand. Thomas has arranged these airs for nymphs into a mini-opera. We follow the progress of the Nymph of the Seine as she emerges into the human world, discovers the pleasures and pains of love, and finally retreats into "darkness and silence."

If I have one (very minor) complaint, it's that a chamber orchestra cannot provide the aural richness of the 50 musicians or so for whom Lully and others composed their operas at the Académie Royale de Musique. But in compensation, the chamber orchestra places Thomas's lovely voice at the forefront.

From Nymphes, the nereid Orithe's "Me plaindrai-je toujours, Amour, sous ton empire?" (Must I forever lament, Love, under your yoke?) by a composer new to me, Pascal Colasse, a younger contemporary of Lully:

https://youtu.be/Qp0cych1ZnI

Me plaindrai-je toujours, Amour, sous ton empire? Ne seras-tu jamais favorable à mes vœux? On me fuit et mon cœur est toujours amoureux, Sans espoir de secours, je languis, je soupire. Me plaindrai-je toujours, Amour, sous ton empire? Ne seras-tu jamais favorable à mes vœux?

Oh Love, shall I forever groan underneath thy yoke? Wilt thou never grant my wishes? I am shunned and love is still in my heart, With no hope of help, I languish and sigh. Oh Love, shall I forever groan underneath thy yoke? Wilt thou never grant my wishes? —all English translations in this post by Nick Halliwell

As is obvious from this clip, Virginie Thomas's soprano is beautifully pure and clear. Its qualities make Thomas an ideal performer of the repertoire on her second recording project for L'Encelade, Mademoiselle Hilaire (ECL 2502).

Mademoiselle Hilaire (L'Encelade ECL 2502). Image credit: Presto Music

Hilaire Dupuis (or Hylaire Dupuy) was "known as 'le cristal humaine' due to the crystalline purity of her voice," Thomas writes in her booklet note. On Mademoiselle Hilaire, Thomas explores the airs, chansons and ensembles composed specifically for this exceptional singer by Michel Lambert, Jean-Baptiste Lully, and Francesco Cavalli during Louis XIV's minority and reign.

Mlle. Hilaire's older sister Gabrielle was also a singer. In 1641, Gabrielle married Lambert, but died just over a year later after giving birth to a daughter, Madeleine. Mlle. Hilaire, then 17 or 18, moved into Lambert's household, perhaps to help care for her infant niece. Mlle. Hilaire became a student of Lambert's and frequently performed with him. In 1655 on a visit to Paris, the Dutch mathematician Christian Huygens wrote to his father of a private concert he'd attended by "Monsieur Lambert and Mademoiselle Hilaire, his sister-in-law, who sings like an angel." [1]

In 1659, when Mlle. Hilaire was in her mid-30s, she was appointed as an Ordinaire de la Musique de la Chambre du Roi, singing in entertainments for Louis XIV, primarily ballets de coeur. Many of these were written by Lully, who attained a position as a court composer. A few years later, after the success of the ballets he had composed for Cavalli's wedding opera L'Ercole Amante (1662), the 29-year-old Lully married the 19-year-old Madeleine Lambert, and moved in with his father-in-law and Mlle. Hilaire. By living in the same house as the two most renowned French composers of the period and having an appointment at court, Mlle. Hilaire was positioned at the center of French musical life.

In the early 1660s Lully and the playwright Molière created a new genre, the comédie-ballet, in which musical intermèdes introduced, appeared between the acts of, and concluded a play. One such work, La Princesse d'Élide, was presented in 1664 as part of week-long spring festivities at Versailles, Les Plaisirs de l'Isle enchantée (Pleasures of the Enchanted Island). The theme of the festival was drawn from Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso, in which the knight Ruggiero is seduced by the beautiful sorceress Alcina and the pleasures of her magical island. La Princesse d'Élide was performed on the second day of the festival, 8 May.

The plot revolved around a princess who was apparently immune to love but who was eventually won over by a young man who feigned indifference in order to entice her. At the outset Princess Elide was presented as a spirited beauty who loved hunting more than she sought love, and it cannot have been an accident that [the king's mistress] Louise de la Vallière was dedicated to the chase. Indeed the whole play might be seen to justify Louis' passion for her. [2]

Portrait of Louise de La Vallière, attributed to Pierre Mignard, c. 1660s. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The musical accompaniment for the intermèdes was provided by "a large, rather heterogeneous orchestra with exotic and colorful instruments. The livret of La Princesse d'Elide mentions 'several hunting horns and trumpets' in concert with the strings, and at one point describes a 'large tree machine in which there are sixteen Faunes, eight of whom play flutes, the others, violin. . . . .Thirty violins answer them from the orchestra with six other harpischord and théorbo soloists." [3]

The sheer scale of the undertaking can be seen in the commemorative engravings of the occasion made by Israël Silvestre:

Seconde Journée: Theatre fait dans la mesme allée, sur le quel la comédie, et le ballet de La princesse d'Elide furent representéz [Second day: Theatre erected in the same avenue, in which the comedy and the ballet of The Princess of Elis was performed], designed and engraved by Israël Silvestre. 19th-century print after 1673 original. Background: a scene from Molière's verse play La princesse d'Élide. Foreground: Louis XIV and members of the court watching the performance. Image source: New York Public Library Digital Collections

As on Nymphes, on Mademoiselle Hilaire Virginie Thomas does not attempt to reproduce the richness of the instrumental forces marshalled for the King's pleasure. But the more intimate approach she and her collaborators take enhances the music's sensuality. "Recit de l'Aurore" from La Princesse d'Elide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46AsyU-8Xmc

L'Aurore: Quand l'amour à vos yeux offre un choix agréable, Jeune beauté laissez-vous enflammer; Moquez-vous d'affecter cet orgueil indomptable Dont on vous dit Qu'il est beau de s'armer. Dans l'âge où l'on est aimable Rien n'est si beau que d'aimer. Soupirez librement pour un amant fidèle, Et bravez ceux qui voudraient vous blâmer; Un cœur tendre est aimable, et le nom de cruelle N'est pas un nom à se faire estimer. Dans le temps où l'on est belle Rien n'est si beau que d'aimer.

Dawn: When love seems to offer you a pleasant choice, Young beauty, allow yourself to be set alight; Trouble not to feign that indomitable pride That is so often said to be Such a fine weapon in one's armoury. When you are of an age to be loved There can be naught finer than to love. Sigh freely for a true lover, And defy those who would criticise you; A tender heart can be loved, and being called "cruel" Is no way to gain others' esteem. For as long as you have beauty There can be naught finer than to love.

The writer Jean Loret was one of the 600 invitees to the Versailles première of La Princesse d'Elise, and wrote a celebratory poem about the performance that mentioned Mlle. Hilaire by name, calling her one of the "Nightingales of the Court." Loret essayed a second poem on seeing the revival two months later of the Lully-Molière comédie-ballet at the Fontainebleau Palace:

Ces deux Filles, qui par leurs voix Ont charmé la Cour tant de fois, Sçavoir Mademoizelle Hilaire, Qui ne sçauroit chanter sans plaire, Et La-Barre, qui plainement Dompte les coeurs à tout moment, Par le rare et double avantage De son chant et de son vizage, Joüérent si bien leur rolet Dans la Piéce et dans le Balet, Remplis d'agréables mélanges, Que, certainement, leurs voix d'Anges Furent dans ces contentemens Un des plus doux ravissemens.

These two Girls who, with their voices, Have charmed the Court so many times, They are Mademoizelle Hilaire, Who could not sing without making a pleasing sound, And Mademoizelle La-Barre, who plainly Wins hearts at any time, With the rare and twofold advantage Of her singing and her face, Played their little roles so well In the Play and in the Ballet, Full of pleasant combinations, That, certainly, their Angels' voices Were, in these contentments One of the sweetest delights. [4]

"Mademoizelle La-Barre" was Anne de la Barre, another court singer with whom Mlle. Hilaire often performed, along with Anna Bergerotti and Mademoiselle de Saint Christophe. Mademoiselle Hilaire includes vocal duets, trios and quartets written for these singers, such as "Recit de l'Europe et des 4 parties du Mond" from Ballet Royal de Flore, given in the Tuileries in 1669:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWeR049nDYE

L'EUROPE Amour, n'est-ce point vous qui par tant de merveilles Charmez nos yeux, et nos oreilles? Sans vous tout déplaît en effet, C'est par vous que des dieux la troupe est divertie, Amour, il n'est rien de bien fait, Si vous n'êtes de la partie. L'AMERIQUE, L'ASIE, L'EUROPE, L'AFRIQUE Amour, il n'est rien de bien fait, Si vous n'êtes de la partie. L'ASIE Il n'est point de plaisir qui ne semble imparfait. L'AFRIQUE Point de félicité pleinement ressentie. L'AMERIQUE Le cœur ne goûte rien dont il soit satisfait. L'AMERIQUE, L'ASIE, L'EUROPE, L'AFRIQUE Amour, il n'est rien de bien fait, Si vous n'êtes de la partie. L'EUROPE En vain pour les plaisirs ici tout se prépare, L'Air s'embellit, le ciel se pare, Sans vous tout déplaît en effet, C'est par vous que des dieux la troupe est divertie, Amour, il n'est rien de bien fait, Si vous n'êtes de la partie. L'AMERIQUE, L'ASIE, L'EUROPE, L'AFRIQUE Amour, il n'est rien de bien fait, Si vous n'êtes de la partie.

EUROPE Oh Love, is it not you whom, by so many wonders Charm our eyes, and our ears? Without you, indeed, there is naught that is pleasing, It is by you that the company of the gods is entertained, Oh Love, naught is well, If you are not there. AMERICA, ASIA, EUROPE, AFRICA Oh Love, naught is well, If you are not there. ASIA There is no pleasure which does not seem imperfect. AFRICA No bliss fully felt. AMERICA The heart tastes naught that slakes its thirst. AMERICA, ASIA, EUROPE, AFRICA Oh Love, naught is well, If you are not there. EUROPE Everything here prepares for pleasures, yet in vain, The very Air beautifies itself, the sky bedecks itself, Without you, indeed, there is naught that is pleasing, It is by you that the company of the gods is entertained, Oh Love, naught is well, If you are not there. AMERICA, ASIA, EUROPE, AFRICA Oh Love, naught is well, If you are not there.

The singers joining Virginie Thomas on the recording are her colleagues from Nymphes, sopranos Maud Gnidzaz and Juliette Perret and mezzo-soprano Anaïs Bertrand.

In 1677 at age 52, Mlle. Hilaire withdrew to the convent of the Nouvelles Catholiques; she remained there for more than three decades until her death in 1709. Mademoiselle Hilaire, from its thoughtful conception to L'Encelade's beautiful design to the exquisite performances of Thomas and her collaborators, allows us to comprehend full well why Mlle. Hilaire was called one of the "nightingales" of Louis XIV's brilliant court.

---

1. James R. Anthony, French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau. Amadeus Press, 1997, p. 347.
2. Ian Thompson, The Sun King's Garden: Louis XIV, André Le Nôtre and the creation of the gardens of Versailles. Bloomsbury, 2006, p. 135.
3. Anthony, French Baroque Music, p. 77.
4. Quoted in Lisandro Abadie, "La Sage Demoiselle Hilaire," Mademoiselle Hilaire booklet, p. 13.

Tristan und Isolde at the Met

Michael Spyres as Tristan and Lise Davidsen as Isolde in Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera. Image credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera. Image source: Playbill.

On Saturday 21 March, The Met Live in HD series livestreamed the matinée performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde to theaters around the world. The casting generated a huge amount of advance interest, most of it focusing on the Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen as Isolde. The theater I went to in San Francisco, the AMC Kabuki 8, was sold out. The Met production is only the second time Davidsen has sung Isolde, her debut in the role occurring only two months earlier in a different production at the Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

I can attest that Davidsen has an exciting voice, especially live. In a recital I attended at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley 13 months ago (see "Lise Davidsen in recital"), Davidsen displayed a soprano that was rich and full, tonally accurate and pure, with substantial volume in its upper range. One of her encores in that recital was her first public performance of the Liebestod (Love-Death), Isolde's final aria, accompanied on piano by Malcolm Martineau. Although Martineau is a superb recital accompanist, the performance made me (and probably everyone else in the hall) want to hear her perform the aria with a full Wagnerian orchestra. We'd all have to wait, though: on 1 June 2025 Davidsen announced the birth of twin sons, and only returned to the operatic stage this past winter for the Barcelona run of Tristan und Isolde.

This Met production is the first time tenor Michael Spyres has attempted the punishing role of Tristan, and is also the debut of the commanding bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green in the role of King Marke.

Ryan Speedo Green as King Marke in Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera, with Lise Davidsen (Isolde), Ekaterina Gubanova (Bragäne), Tomasz Konieczny (Kurwenal) and Michael Spyres (Tristan). Image credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera. Image source: Playbill.

Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met's music director, was also conducting Tristan und Isolde for the first time, and stage director Yuval Sharon had never before grappled with the work's fundamental unstageability or directed an opera on the vastness of the Met stage. The only seasoned veterans in the production were mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova as Isolde's lady-in-waiting Bragäne and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny as Tristan's loyal knight Kurwenal (Green, Gubanova and Konieczny were all excellent, by the way; see "Favorites of 2016: Nonfiction Books" for a review of Daniel Bergner's compelling biography of Green, Sing For Your Life: A Story of Race, Music, and Family (Little, Brown, 2016)).

So perhaps not surprisingly the Live in HD experience was a mixed one. First, there were technical glitches in the movie theater, the second time in two tries this season that we've experienced such issues (they also plagued Strauss's Arabella last fall at the AMC Metreon). The image and sound cut out abruptly for the first ten minutes, erasing the all-important Prélude, which introduces the Tristan chord that will finally resolve five hours later at the end of the opera. Then about two-thirds of the way through Act I, the voices in the house-right speakers cut out, making all the vocalists seem like they were standing at our extreme left, no matter where the image suggested they were appearing on stage. (Weirdly, the orchestral aural image seemed to remain centered, suggesting that this might have been a problem with the stage mics at the Met.) Finally, of course, it has to be remembered that I was hearing the opera sung and played into microphones and mixed at the Met before being transmitted to and issuing from the speakers in the movie theater, so I was not hearing what an audience member in the house would have heard, and the aural quality of the voices was changed.

But even taking all the tech issues into account, I had a few hesitations about the performances. Davidsen has a gleaming upper range, but her low notes often got swamped in the orchestral wall of sound. While this might have been a problem with Nézet-Séguin's conducting or the amplified audio mix, I also detected more of a vibrato in her voice; it seems to have lost some of its former purity. Fundamentally, it felt like her voice is on the lyric side of "lyric-dramatic soprano." While the most lyrical moments of the role were wonderfully sung, including the "Liebestod," I was left wondering whether the role of Isolde was perhaps not a perfect fit for her substantial gifts.

Lise Davidsen as Isolde in the Act III "Liebestod" of Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera. Image credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera. Image source: Playbill.

This seemed an even bigger question with Michael Spyres. His voice has a lovely timbre and wide range—he calls himself a "bari-tenor"—and is always a pleasure to listen to. (We saw him perform live in a jaw-dropping recital of largely Baroque arias at Wigmore Hall in May 2023; see "Music in London and Boston"). However, Tristan and other Wagner tenor roles require a voice that also has what I've seen referred to as "metal" (a steely, stentorian quality) and "thrust" (the ability to cut through the sound of an orchestra at moments of high drama). I'm hardly an expert on the fach system, but Spyres seems more of a lyric tenor or Jugendlicherheldentenor (youthful-sounding heroic tenor) than the mature Wagnerian Heldentenor for which the role of Tristan was written. I will say that he made it to the end of this vocal marathon with beauty of tone intact and without sounding fatigued, which demonstrates incredible stamina.

Michael Spyres as Tristan with dancers in Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera. Image credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera. Image source: Playbill.

I just hope that if Davidsen and Spyres are planning to take on more Wagner roles they don't sacrifice their voices' innate beauty and appeal to do so.

Don't get me wrong: I was grateful for the lyrical leanings of the two leads, which resulted in a love duet in Act II that was especially ravishing. And this was also the moment when the direction and design of the production worked best: the singers seemed to float in the air like the lovers in a Chagall painting as they sang of their night of rapture. And this is also where Nézet-Séguin's tendency to favor lyrical flow over urgency worked very well indeed.

Lise Davidsen as Isolde and Michael Spyres as Tristan in the Act II love duet of Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera. Image credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera. Image source: Playbill.

In a between-acts interview, Nézet-Séguin talked about the score's oceanic feeling. On the podium he evoked that quality beautifully, and the seascapes that sometimes appeared in Ruth Hogben's video projections matched the surging and ebbing of the music. However, Nézet-Séguin also said that although the score is four hours long, it suspends time. His stately approach to tempi ensured that I was aware of every minute of the performance's four hours (plus two 30-minute intermissions). Not that I didn't appreciate the chance to wallow in some of the most gorgeous music ever written, but I was never swept away into a state of timelessness.

And a key reason I remained generally earth- and chronologically bound throughout the performance was Sharon's direction. He introduced modern-dress doubles for the characters of Tristan and Isolde, who spent much of the opera at a center-stage table below an elevated portal in which most of the action happened. As is almost always true of character doubles, these figures were distracting and entirely unnecessary, as were the dancers added to some scenes. (Did Sharon not think that the drama of the main characters would hold our attention?)

Lise Davidsen as Isolde, Michael Spyres as Tristan and their doubles in Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera. Image credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera. Image source: Metropolitan Opera.

Set designer Es Devlin's "portal" playing space was limiting and (except in the love-duet scene) not particularly evocative, and apart from their effective seascapes Hogben's video projections often literalized and trivialized the imagery of the libretto. (A moth drawn to a flame? A broken relationship symbolized by a broken plate? Giant closeups of the singers? Blood spraying in slow motion during the Act III violence? Please.) Finally, Sharon changed the ending: Isolde is shown to have become pregnant during her night of passion with Tristan, and dies in childbirth (like Tristan's mother). This is a Nietzschean eternal return rather than the moment of transcendence and resolution Wagner's "Love-Death" music evokes.

So (technical issues aside) The Met Live in HD production offered a chance to relish Wagner's great music and the wonderful voices of the cast, but all too often I found myself closing my eyes to block out the annoying stage images. You'll probably have a chance to come to your own conclusions: this Live in HD production will presumably appear on video and may even be broadcast on PBS (though likely not on the San Francisco PBS station, KQED, which seems afraid of all things opera).

Favorites of 2025: Recordings

As with the other posts in this series, the recordings listed below are my favorites of those first experienced in 2025. I've listed them below by musical category in chronological order by period.

Renaissance polyphony

Two all-male choirs made my list for 2025. Although in this music we also very much enjoy mixed ensembles such as the Huelgas Ensemble, Stile Antico, and Tallis Scholars, during the Renaissance sacred polyphony was probably most often sung by single-sex choirs. (Although the repeated edicts barring women from church choirs does make one wonder why the ban had to be so often reissued.) I confess as well that I simply like the sound of all-male (and all-female) choirs. Both of these groups are exceptional, and their programs were of music mainly unfamiliar to me.

Queen of Hearts. The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park, director. Hyperion CDA68453; recorded 2023.

This album features songs of praise for the Virgin Mary and "regretz chansons" (songs of lamenting and despair) from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Much of the music is associated with four queens: Anne of Brittany, Margaret of Austria, Anne Boleyn and Mary Tudor. Three of the queens died relatively young from ill health, sudden or chronic; one, Anne Boleyn, was executed by her husband, King Henry VIII, after unsubstantiated accusations of adultery, incest and treason. The music is exquisite, and includes two contemporary works (one by the group's leader Owain Park) that fit into the program almost seamlessly.

"Sub tuum praesidium" by Antoine Brumel, c. 1500:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAvNucEv1Qk

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei genetrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.

To thy protection we fly, O Holy Mother of God; Do not spurn our prayers in our time of need, but from all dangers deliver us always, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.

Jacobus Vaet: Missa Ego flos campi. Cinquecento. Hyperion CDA67733; recorded 2008.

Vaet, a composer new to me, died in 1567 at age 37. His music does not sound as dark or melancholy to my ears as that of the Franco-Flemish composers of the "regretz chansons" from a generation or two before him, although perhaps that is because most of the music on this disc is devotional and laudatory. It is beautifully performed by the voices of Cinquecento, with the floating countertenor of Terry Wey of particular note.

Vaet's "Miserere mei, Deus," c. 1562:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAEWIH4PgEI

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam. Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum: et in peccatis concepit me mater mea. Miserere mei, Deus.

Have mercy upon me, O God: according to thy lovingkindness. and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me. Have mercy upon me, O God.

Baroque opera and oratorio

Johann Adolf Hasse: Piramo e Tisbe. Barbara Schlick (Piramo), Ann Monoyios (Tisbe), Wilfred Jochens (Padre). La Stagione, Michael Schneider, conductor. Capriccio 60 043-2; recorded 1993.

In October 1763 the 64-year-old Johann Adolf Hasse, Kapellmeister of the Dresden court of the Elector of Saxony August II, lost his position when his patron died. It was the latest in a series of catastrophes: earlier that year on returning to Dresden after several years, Hasse had discovered that his house and all of his musical manuscripts had been destroyed during the Prussian bombardment of the city in 1760. After August's death, the new Elector instituted economies and ended large-scale musical activity at the court. Hasse and his wife Faustina Bordoni were given two years' salary, but no pension for their 30 years of service. They departed for Vienna early in 1764.

In Vienna Hasse found himself enmeshed in controversy. He was upheld as an exemplar of Metastasian opera seria against the reformers Christoph Willibald Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi. Gluck and Calzabigi meant to do away with what they considered the old-fashioned and static conventions of opera seria, such as the da capo exit aria intended to showcase virtuoso vocalism. Instead, they wanted to push the dramatic action forward more swiftly. Two years before they had produced an opera following these principles, Orfeo ed Euridice (1762).

Johann Adolf Hasse, engraved by Friedrich Johann Kauke after a painting by Pietro Rotari, ca. 1763. Image source: Museum-Digital Sachsen-Anhalt

Hasse must have seen the false position in which he'd been placed as something of a challenge. When an opera was privately commissioned from him in 1768, he responded by producing a Gluck-like work with just three characters, featuring short arias with few repeats that emerged out of accompanied recitative and flowed back into recitative without a break, and that reaches its conclusion in a swift two hours—very much like Orfeo ed Euridice.

Piramo e Tisbe is based on Book IV of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Prefiguring Romeo and Juliet, Pyramus and Thisbe have fallen in love, but their families are at odds. In the face of a parental ban on their union, they plan to elope. But their plan goes awry, and disaster ensues. Hasse and his librettist Marco Coltellini went further even than the reformers: their intermezzo tragico is a true tragedy. Unlike in Orfeo ed Euridice, no gods intervene to ensure a happy ending and reunite the couple. Instead, this is the very rarest and darkest of 18th-century operas: at the end, all the characters in the opera—the two lovers along with Tisbe's father, who had forbidden their union—are dead, and all have died by suicide.

Pyrame et Thisbé. Line engraving by Vicenzo Vangelisti after Guido Reni, 18th century. Wellcome Collection 42992i

This recording was one of the first ever made of this work, and has stood the test of time. As Tisbe, Ann Monoyios displays a pretty soprano with an appropriate touch of plaintiveness. The opera was commissioned by the singer who played the original Tisbe, and Hasse lavished his gift for beautiful melodies on the character. Barbara Schlick's Piramo offers a slightly harder-edged voice, not as appealing but well-suited to her male role. Tisbe's father was written for the librettist Coltellini himself, a tenor. Wilfred Jochens' voice is sufficiently ringing to provide a sense of authority, even if to my ears his music doesn't sound particularly threatening. 

Piramo e Tisbe has received a new recording this year on Harmonia Mundi featuring Roberta Mameli as Tisbe, Anett Frisch as Piramo, and Jeremy Ovenden as the father, accompanied by Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by Bernhard Forck. The two leads on the Harmonia Mundi recording are perhaps stronger than those on the Capriccio recording, although I prefer Jochens to Ovenden as the father. On Harmonia Mundi, Forck employs somewhat swifter tempi and has the singers emphasize the drama, while on the earlier recording Schneider takes a more measured and stately approach. Forck also cuts the ballet music that concludes each act, and which may not have been composed by Hasse. If you don't already own a copy of this work, the new recording might be the preferred one. But this earlier recording is a very satisfying discovery, and I'm not rushing out to replace it.

Tisbe's Act I aria "Perduto l'amato bene," in which she begs her father not to force her to marry another man against her will:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w92tQqXCxjM

Perdero l'amato bene rompero quel dolce laccio; ma que ad altro amate in braccio per tua man mi guidi amor! Ah non posso, ah non sia vero adorato genitor. Tanta forza al cor non sento. Mi sgomento il sol pensiero. Basterebbe in quel momento ad uccidermi il dolor.

Should I renounce my love and sever that sweet bond? Should my love for you guide me into the arms of another lover? Oh, I couldn't! It could not be true my dearest father. It is not in my heart's power. I am dismayed by the thought alone. It would be enough at that moment to kill me with pain.

Hasse: Serpentes ignei in deserto. Philippe Jaroussky (Moses), Julia Lezhneva (The Angel), Bruno de Sá (Josue), Carlo Vistoli (Eleazar), Jakub Józef Orliński (Nathanael), David Hansen (Eliab). Les Accents, Thibault Noally, conductor. Erato 2173239904; recorded 2023.

There are fireworks aplenty in Hasse's oratorio Fiery Serpents in the Desert. The work depicts an Old Testament incident during the 40 years Moses and the Israelites wandered in the desert after Exodus: God sends venomous snakes to punish the restive Israelites, who can only be saved by reaffirming their faith. The oratorio was written around 1735 for the all-female instrumentalists and vocalists of the Ospedale degli Incurabili orphanage in Venice. Judging from the music in Serpentes ignei in deserto, they must have been extraordinary virtuosi.

In this recording five of the six roles originally sung by women are taken by an all-star lineup of countertenors. Although the presence of perennial favorite Philippe Jaroussky is the reason I bought this for my partner, it is the male sopranist Bruno de Sá who provides the most astonishment.

There is another, older recording on Harmonia Mundi that features a gender-reversed group of soloists in the male roles, including the wonderful mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d'Oustrac along with contralto Annette Markert and sopranos Isabelle Poulenard and Valérie Gabail; countertenor Robert Expert is the Angel. In this live recording the singers are accompanied by Les Paladins conducted by Jérôme Correas. I'm very curious, as the Harmonia Mundi recording matches more closely the historical forces that first performed this work. However, if you are a fan of countertenor singing there is every reason to experience this new recording.

Josue's "Spera, o cor" sung  by Bruno de Sá, accompanied by Les Accents conducted by Thibault Noally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THeA4aWbld0

Spera, o cor, spera, laetare, consolare, veniet lux, veniet laetitia; in moestitia sic afflictum non plorabis. Surge laeta aura splendoris, aura amoris, infelici sede optata cor tranquillum habitatis.

Hope, my heart, hope and rejoice, be comforted: your light will come, your joy will come; you will not weep thus amid affliction and sadness. Arise, joyful breath of splendor, breath of love; though in a place of unhappiness you will live with a peaceful heart.

Invocazioni Mariane. Andreas Scholl (countertenor), Accademia Bizantina, Alessandro Tampieri, conductor. Naïve V5474; recorded 2022.

Andreas Scholl turned 58 this year, and so it's unclear how many more recordings we can expect from him. However, his voice on this album of Marian music of the early and mid-18th century still retains much of its fullness and purity; on this evidence he could continue to perform and record for years to come.

Most of the composers represented are Neapolitan, including Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Giovanni Pergolesi, and Pasquale Anfossi, and most of the pieces included are vocal or instrumental excerpts from Easter oratorios. All of the works on the disc by these composers were unfamiliar to me, which just emphasizes how much high-quality music of this era remains to be discovered.

The one work that seems out of place is Antonio Vivaldi's Stabat Mater. It's a curious choice for this album because Vivaldi was not from Naples (he was born in Venice and spent most of his professional life in Northern Italy) and Stabat Mater is not an oratorio (although neither is Anfossi's Salve Regina). Also, Scholl has recorded it at least twice before, in 1995 with Ensemble 415 conducted by Chiara Banchini, and in 2017 with Bach Consort Wien conducted by Rubén Dubrovsky. Beautiful as Vivaldi's work is, I wish that Scholl had sought out more under-performed Marian music by other Naples-based composers such as Leonardo Leo or Francesco Durante. 

Finally, a word about the cover showing a furtive-looking and unshaven Scholl in a hoodie and overcoat, looking like he's about to do a smash-and-grab at a jewelry store: not sure what the thought was there, but perhaps there should have been a second one. A curious cover for an otherwise lovely album.

From Anfossi's Salve Regina, "Ad te suspiram":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmKqjf3d60s

Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle.

To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

Music after 1800

Schubert: Lieder. Elly Ameling, soprano, with Rudolf Jansen, piano. Philips 416 294-2; recorded 1984.

This is the second year in a row the Dutch soprano Elly Ameling has appeared on my favorites list (see Favorites of 2024: Recorded music). She had a four-decade-long career, primarily as an exponent of art song; in a different era for the dissemination and reception of classical music, she recorded over a hundred albums. I'm still in the process of discovering her many recordings, which reveal her lovely soprano and her thoughtful approach to each song.

Although over the course of her career she sang music by many 18th- and 19th-century composers, she is known especially as a supreme interpreter of Schubert. This was her second album of Schubert songs with accompanist Rudolf Jansen, her third long-time partner after Jörg Demus and Dalton Baldwin. I look forward to many more years of exploring her extensive discography.

Schubert's "Am Bach im Frühling" (By the brook in springtime), D. 361; the poem is by Franz von Schober:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d9PNtx_FX0

Du brachst sie nun, die kalte Rinde, Und rieselst froh und frei dahin, Die Lüfte wehen wieder linde, Und Moos und Gras wird neu und grün. Allein, mit traurigem Gemüte Tret ich wie sonst zu deiner Flut. Der Erde allgemeine Blüte Kommt meinem Herzen nicht zu gut. Hier treiben immer gleiche Winde, Kein Hoffen kommt in meinen Sinn, Als dass ich hier ein Blümchen finde, Blau, wie sie der Erinnrung blühn.

You have broken now the frozen crust, and ripple along, joyful and free; the breezes blow mild again, moss and grass are fresh and green. Alone, with sorrowful thoughts, I come as before to your waters; the blossoming of the whole earth does not gladden my heart. Here the same winds forever blow, no hope cheers my spirit, save that I find a flower here, blue, like the blossoms of remembrance.

Other favorites of 2025:

• Books
• Live and streamed performances
• Movies and television