APOLLO E DAFNE Georg Friedrich Haendel
La RisonanzaFabio Bonizzoni
GCD 921527 1 CD – digipak
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Performing artists
La RisonanzaFabio Bonizzoni, direction
Roberta Invernizzi, soprano Thomas E. Bauer, bass Furio Zanasi, bass
La Risonanza Andrea Mion, Elisabeth Baumer, oboe Marco Brolli, traverso Dana Karmon, bassoon Nicholas Robinson, Silvia Colli, Ana Liz Ojeda, Carlo Lazzaroni, Rossella Borsoni, Barbara Altobello, violins Gianni de Rosa, viola Caterina Dell’Agnello, Marco Testori, cello Nicola Barbieri, double bass Fabio Bonizzoni, harpsichord
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GEORG FRIEDRICH HAENDEL (1685-1759)
Apollo e Dafne Le Cantate Italiane di Handel VIINapoli, 1708 - Hannover, 1710
1-18 Apollo e Dafne (La terra è liberata) [HWV 122]
19-28 Agrippina condotta a morire (Dunque sarà pur vero) [HWV 110]
29-32 Cuopre tal volta il cielo [HWV 98]
About this CD
For the final volume in Fabio Bonizzoni’s survey of cantatas written by Georg Friedrich Handel during his stay in Italy, the background scenery moves – like a reflection of the Grand Tour – from Rome to Naples; probably the troubled times in a Rome besieged by Imperial troops during the War of the Spanish Succession may have encouraged the young, itinerant Saxon musician to consider that heading down south was safer and more conducive for his overall career prospects.
It was a time when Handel was conceiving the three highly-charged cantatas to be heard on this disc and he would have been aware that Naples was blest with a bass singer, Domenico Antonio Manna, possessed of a prodigious vocal range, encompassing two octaves and a fifth. And maybe, Handel wrote two of the pieces performed on this disc – Apollo e Dafne and Cuopre tal volta il cielo – with Manna in mind, even if the former cantata was perhaps completed once Handel later had reached Hannover.
Carlo Vitali’s engaging booklet essay colourfully helps to summon up early 18th century Neapolitan culture and Handel’s potential place within it.
Joining Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza for these modern-day realizations of the Baroque Italian musical world experienced by Handel are Furio Zanasi and Thomas Bauer for the bass roles, as well as soprano Roberta Invernizzi, an integral feature of this revelatory and much-praised Handel series since its inception.
Roberta Invernizzi is very clearly one of the finest sopranos to be heard today in the Baroque - and especially the Italian Baroque - repertory, as evidenced by the beauty that she brings not only to operatic roles and vocal roles which have been essayed by many other famous singers both on record and in performance, but also by her sense of clarity in and characterization of unknown music from the 17th and 18th centuries. The rediscovery of so much Italian music is a reflection of the labour and artistry of numerous musical minds but as a kind of prima donna inter pares the Milanese soprano stands out from many others for the intensity of her approach, to the point that she is emerging as a new muse for other distinguished modern-day practitioners of the Italian Baroque such as Fabio Bonizzoni and Antonio Florio who contribute here their own thoughts on the artistry of Roberta Invernizzi, adding to the soprano’s own considerations about her musical life.[read more...]
Fabio Bonizzoni’s series, with La Risonanza, of Handel Italian cantate con stromenti for Glossa has now come to a conclusion with seven volumes recorded, but not before the group were awarded the 2010 Stanley Sadie Handel Recording Prize for the fifth instalment, Clori, Tirsi e Fileno (with sopranos Yetzabel Arias Fernández and Roberta Invernizzi and contralto Romina Basso in the three named roles). In commending the disc the jury of the Recording Prize made the following comments, “La Risonanza produces a delightful performance that presents all of the strengths and virtues we have come to associate with their recent explorations of Handel’s music. [read more...]
In the third instalment in Fabio Bonizzoni’s survey of the secular cantatas with instrumental accompaniment composed by Georg Frideric Handel during his stay in Italy, come a quartet of works associated with the Venice-born maecenas Pietro Ottoboni – including the substantial Ero e Leandro, the libretto for which is plausibly considered to have been written by the Cardinal Ottoboni himself. As well as the seldom-performed cantata for bass, Spande ancora a mio dispetto and Ah! Crudel, nel pianto mio scored for soprano solo, Bonizzoni also directs the Spanish-texted No se emendará jamás.[read more...]