31 Mar 2009
Rolando Villazón — Handel
When considering his next recording project, notes Rolando Villazón, the idea of working on a set of Handel arias with Paul McCreesh was “not an obvious choice.”
Recently in Reviews
Domingo Conducts Holdridge’s New Opera Dulce Rosa
Dulce Rosa, a brand new opera, had its world premiere Friday night, May 17, 2013 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. It was produced by Los Angeles Opera, but staged in the smaller theater.
Verdi’s Falstaff at Glyndebourne
Richard Jones’ 2009 production of Verdi’s Falstaff translates the action from the first Elizabethan age to the start of the second.
Gareth John, Wigmore Hall
Baritone Gareth John is rapidly accumulating a war-chest of honours. Winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, he recently won the Royal Academy of Music Patrons’ Award and was presented the Silver Medal by the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
La bohème at ENO
This second revival of Jonathan Miller’s La bohème was the first time I had caught the production.
Rolando Villazón: Verdi (International Opera Stars Series 2013)
It’s Verdi’s bicentenary year and Rolando Villazón has two new CDs to plug — titled somewhat confusingly, ‘Villazón: Verdi’ and ‘Villazón’s Verdi’, the latter a ‘personal selection’ of favourite numbers performed by stars of the past and present.
Brahms Third in San Francisco
Nicola Luisotti and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra climbed out of the War Memorial pit, braved the wind whipped bay and held spellbound an audience at Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Auditorium at UC Berkeley.
Ariane et Barbe-Bleue on Blu-Ray
Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, first heard in 1907, once seemed important. Arturo Toscanini conducted the Met premiere in 1911 with Farrar and later arranged some of its music for a 1947 recording with his NBC Symphony.
Glyndebourne: Ariadne auf Naxos
Utterly mad but absolutely right — Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Ariadne auf Naxos is not “about” Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made.
Wozzeck at ENO
“Man is an abyss. It makes one dizzy to look into it.” So utters Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, repeating what was also a recurring motif in the playwright’s own letters.
Mulhouse: Rare Britten Well Done
National Opera Company of the Rhine has marked this year’s Benjamin Britten celebration with a remarkably compelling, often gripping new production of the seldom-seen Owen Wingrave.
Frankfurt's Intriguing Idomeneo
Once upon a time, Frankfurt Opera had the baddest ass reputation in Germany as “the” cutting edge producer of must-see opera.
Rigoletto at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Productions of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto can serve as a vehicle for individual singers to make a strong impression and become afterward associated with specific roles in the opera.
Britten Sinfonia with Ian Bostridge
Just in case we were not aware that the evening’s programme was ‘themed’, the Britten Sinfonia designed a visual accompaniment to their musical exploration of night, sleep and dreams.
Aida, Manitoba Opera
Poor Aida! She never seems to have anything go her way.
Superlative singing: Don Carlo, Royal Opera House
Is it possible to upstage Jonas Kaufmann? Kaufmann was brilliant in this Verdi Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House, London, but the rest of the cast was so good that he was but first among equals. Don Carlo is a vehicle for stars, but this time the stars were everyone on stage and in the pit. Even the solo arias, glorious as they are, grow organically out of perfect ensemble. This was a performance that brought out the true beauty of Verdi's music.
Sarah Connolly: French Song at Wigmore Hall
The big names were absent: Duparc, D’Indy, Debussy, Ravel … and while Fauré, Chausson, Roussel and several members of Les Six put in an appearance, in less than familiar guises, this survey of French song of the early 20th century and interwar years deliberately took us on a journey through infrequently travelled terrain.
Rare restoration: Handel’s Esther 1720
Composed between 1718 and 1720, Handel’s Esther is sometimes described as the ‘first English Oratorio’, but is in fact a hybrid form, mixing elements of oratorio, masque, pastoral and opera.
The Damnation of Faust, London
Hector Berlioz's légende dramatique, La Damnation de Faust, exists somewhere between cantata and opera. Berlioz's flexible attitude to dramatic form made the piece unworkable on the stages of early 19th century Paris and his music is so vivid that you wonder whether the piece needs staging at all.
Elizabeth Connell Memorial Concert, St John's Smith Square
St. John’s Smith Square was the site of Elizabeth Connell’s final London concert, intended as a farewell to London on her moving to Australia. It was rendered ultimately final by her unexpected death.
Aida with all the Trimmings, Even a Blue Silk Elephant!
With the building of the Suez Canal, Egypt became more interesting to Western Europeans. Khedive Ismail Pasha wanted a hymn by Verdi for the opening of a new opera house in Cairo, but the composer said he did not write occasional pieces.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Reviews
This, of course, is an understatement: the idea of teaming a rising young opera star, most comfortable in the world of verismo opera, with a baroque specialist and his period-instrument orchestra to perform Handel is audacious, and at first sight, wildly inappropriate. But what issues from this unusual union is something quite remarkable, and at times, stunning. In a year in which there will be many tributes commemorating the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death, this may be one of the most surprising, and satisfying.
This recording features selections from four Handel operas — Tamerlano (1724), Rodelinda (1725), Serse (1738), and Ariodante (1735) — as well as two arias from La Resurrezione (1709), an oratorio from the composer’s Roman period. A number of the arias were not written originally for tenor, and have been transposed in this performance to better fit the voice of Villazón. Although purists may be offended by these changes, one must remember that during the age of Handel it was not unusual for arias to be transposed, sung in a different language from the recitative, or modified in any number of ways. Indeed, Joseph Addison, who wrote the first reviews of Handel’s operas in the early eighteenth century, observed that opera was “a joining together of inconsistencies.” If Handel could accept a castrato in the role of a man or a woman, singing emperors who sailed in open boats on a sea of paste-board, or singing witches lowered onto stage by ropes while fireworks were lit in the theatre (with emergency equipment at the ready should fire break out), we should be able to deal with Rolando Villazón singing castrato arias in different keys.
The performances by Villazón and McCreesh bring together the best of both worlds — exacting period-performance standards with operatic intensity. Throughout much of the recording Villazón’s voice exhibits a brilliance which is perfectly matched with the drama Handel wished to express in his music. The melismas, rapid passage work, and unusual leaps found in such arias as “Ciel e terra” from Tamerlano, or the recitative accompagnato “Fatto inferno è il mio petto” from Rodelinda, were written for dramatic effect, effects not altogether different from those required of a soloist in La Traviata or La Bohème. In these arias Villazón brings all of his trademark intensity to bear, and by so doing reveals a deep respect and affection for the music. His singing is never overpowering, his attention to the text is impressive, and his uncanny ability to match the tone quality of a baroque orchestra by moving in and out of straight-tone and vibrato are so expressive that one might think he had studied this type of music all his life. This recording is a tribute not just to his musicality, but to his intelligence.
Although some of the most popular of Handel’s Italian arias (e.g., “Ombra mai fu” from Serse) are included in this collection, the highpoint is undoubtedly “Scherza, infida” from Ariodante. McCreesh’s masterful handling of the muted string accompaniment along with Villazon’s astonishing tone and sensitivity makes this performance a treat irresistible to any lover of Handel. Similarly haunting is “Pastorello d’un povero armento” from Rodelinda, although in this aria Villazón’s normally strong Italian diction sometimes deserts him. While not all listeners may enjoy Bajazet’s death scene from Tamerlano, the expressive treatment of the dying sultan’s final moments is exactly what audiences in Handel’s day would have enjoyed. Indeed, Villlazón and McCreesh probably come as close as anyone to recreating the magical world of baroque opera with their obsessive and over-the-top interpretation of the lines “per tormentar, per lacerar, quell mostro io sarò la maggior furia d’Averno.”
It is well-known that Villazón has been struggling vocally of late, and this CD represents one of his first serious efforts since his year-long hiatus in 2007. To those who enjoy the pure beauty of his remarkable tenor voice, this collection will provide much pleasure and the assurance that he is again singing beautifully. To those who wish to gain a better understanding and appreciation of Handel, particularly listeners who are familiar only with The Messiah or Royal Fireworks Music, this set of arias will be an excellent introduction into the complexity and sophistication found so abundantly in the composer’s Italian vocal works.
Donald R. Boomgaarden