HANDEL - Rodelinda

 

IL Complesso Barocco/ Alan Curtis

 

Rodelinda: Simone Kermes

Bertarido: Marijana Mijanovic

Grimoaldo: Steve Davislim

Unulfol: Marie-Nicole Lemieux

Eduige: Sonia Prina

Garibaldo: Vito Priante

 

FIRST EVER COMPLETE RECORDING!!

Alan Curtis is one of the pioneers of early music as an interpreter, editor, and as a specialist in old instruments - being part of the movement for almost half a century, he has brought about some significant revivals with his performances all over Europe and America.

 

The cast brings together two of the hottest young stars of today's Baroque opera scene; Simone Kermes and Marijana Mijanovic, both no strangers to the Archiv label, are hailed by the press worldwide as the rising Baroque divas of the new century.

 

Rodelinda was greeted as a masterpiece when it was premiered in London in 1725 and is still one of the top three most-performed operas by Handel.

 

The third of the remarkable trio of serious operas that Handel wrote for his London winter season of 1724-25 (its rather different predecessors are Giulio Cesare and Tamerlano) has long needed a recommendable recording — and this brilliantly directed, well-cast account easily surpasses rival period versions conducted by Schneider (DHM) and Kraemer (Virgin). Hitherto on disc, Curtis has concentrated on the rarer Handel opera titles, but here he tackles one of the composer’s well-established masterpieces and supervises a performance worthy of the music. It is based on Pertharite, an obscure tragedy by Corneille, and Handel’s music for the soprano (Rodelinda), castrato alto (Bertarido) and tenor (Grimoaldo) is among his finest. There is a ravishing duet for the married couple, with hardly a weak number for the supporting cast. Simone Kermes makes a forceful Rodelinda, spitting her fury at Steve Davislim ’s commanding Grimoaldo. As Bertarido, Marijana Mijanovic sings movingly, with her grave, androgynous alto, and Sonia Prina, Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Vito Priante are excellent as Eduige, Unulfo and Garibaldo.

Times, Four stars

With Giulio Cesare and Tamerlano, Rodelinda (1725) is one of the supreme operas of Handel's palmy Royal Academy days.
The plot, centring on the devotion in extremis of the Lombard Queen and her exiled husband Bertarido, is, by Baroque standards, a model of clarity; and the music is glorious, not only for the heroine but also for Bertarido (whose "Dove sei?" became a Handelian hit as "Art thou Troubled?") and for the vicious, ultimately remorseful usurper Grimoaldo.
A long-overdue modern Rodelinda appeared on Virgin in 1998. But this new version eclipses it, both for Alan Curtis's sharper, bolder direction and for the richer characterisation of its leading roles. Touching in the pastoral lament "Ombra, piante" and formidable in her expressions of passion and defiance, Simone Kermes gives Rodelinda a true tragic grandeur. With her strong, androgynous tone, contralto Marijana Mijanovi'c ensures that Bertarido is no mooning.
Steve Davislim, an elegant Handel stylist, makes much of the complex figure of Grimoaldo. The minor parts are all vividly done, setting the seal on a magnificent account of one of the half-dozen indispensable Handel operas.
Richard Wigmore, Telegraph

Memories of Glyndebourne's production are here rekindled by this fine new recording of Handel's powerful work (one which often drawn parallels with Beethoven's Fidelio thanks to certain similarities of plot). It was, interestingly, the piece that spearheaded the 20th-century Handel revival when it was heard in Göttingen in 1920. It's well worth hearing in 2005, especially when done as superbly as it is here.

Gramophone

 

DG 3cds 4775391