Ifigenia in Aulide<\/em>. Photo: Clemens Manser<\/p>\n Ifigenia<\/em> comes from the middle period of the composer\u2019s career, when a group of aristocrats hostile to Handel, led by Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, invited Porpora to London to throw down the gauntlet to the revived Royal Academy of Music. The Opera of the Nobility was inaugurated in December 1733 with the premiere of Porpora\u2019s Arianna in Nasso<\/em> at Lincoln\u2019s Inn Fields Theatre, a month before the premiere of Handel\u2019s Arianna in Creta<\/em>, which was being prepared at the Haymarket theatre. After two not very successful seasons, the Opera of the Nobility moved to the King\u2019s Theatre in Covent Garden and began regularly using underhand tactics against the rival company. The rivalry brought both sides to the brink of bankruptcy, but Handel won in the end. The Opera of the Nobility went out of business in 1737, having been ruined in large by demands of ever-higher salaries from the singers, including the contralto Francesca Bertolli, the castrati Senesino and Farinelli, and the bass Antonio Montagnana. Discouraged, Porpora left England, tried in vain to obtain a position at the imperial court in Vienna and eventually returned to Naples, where he rebuilt his reputation for a time with a new, revised version of Semiramide riconosciuta<\/em>.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t count Festa d’Imeneo<\/em>, his last London opera \u2013 or, in fact, a serenata \u2013 the 1735 Ifigenia <\/em>received the frostiest reception from King\u2019s Theatre regulars. Its run ended after only five performances, overshadowed by the much more popular Polifemo<\/em>. The main culprit for the failure was probably Porpora\u2019s regular collaborator, the librettist Paolo Antonio Rolli, who made the decision \u2013 misguided, as it turned out \u2013 to stick faithfully to the myth in Euripides\u2019 version and focused too much on the relationships between the characters at the expense of effective dramaturgy. Yet musically, it is an extraordinary work, challenging the established stereotype of Porpora\u2019s \u201cold-fashioned\u201d style. Despite its rather conventional structure \u2013 with plenty of virtuoso da capo<\/em> arias alternating with secco<\/em> recitatives \u2013 Ifigenia<\/em> delights with its lyricism and beauty of melodic lines, variety of colour effects, as well as the composer\u2019s method of constructing harmonic structures, already heralding classicism.<\/p>\n Aware that Rolli\u2019s \u201cEuripidean\u201d libretto may, paradoxically, better appeal to the sensibilities of modern audiences, Max Emanuel Cen\u010di\u0107 this time departed from the aesthetics of theatrical pastiche, creating a production that is clear, and, at the same time, marked by deep symbolism and a plethora of references to the myth\u2019s \u201cimagined\u201d reality, which has changed over the centuries. I have already praised the set designer Giorgina Germanou\u2019s talent for shaping space and mood with the help of simple, brilliantly lit decorations and expressive costumes (also by her this time) in connection with the pasticcio Sarrasine<\/em> at this year\u2019s G\u00f6ttingen Handel Festival. The lighting director Romain de Lagarde bathed the sets in evocative shades of red, symbolising bloody sacrifice; idyllic blues; white, suggesting Iphigenia\u2019s innocence; and the fathomless black of Diana\/Artemis, in Greek mythology the goddess of hunting, but also of the moon and death. The nakedness of Agamemnon\u2019s soldiers, bringing to my mind scenes from classical red-figure vases, and the war colours of the Myrmidons, Achilles\u2019 cruel and uncouth companions, are contrasted with the ominous purple of the seer Calchas\u2019 robes, the heroes\u2019 costumes suspended outside time and the Baroque splendour of the Atreides\u2019 clothing. However, what turned out to be Cen\u010di\u0107\u2019s most interesting idea was the division of the role of Iphigenia between a young, silent actress (Marina Diakoumakou) and black-clad Diana sporting deer antlers on her head, who accompanies Iphigenia like a shadow \u2013 this highlighted the passivity of the eponymous heroine in the face of divine will and, at the same time, provided the tragedy with an expressive narrative frame: from the anger of Diana demanding a human sacrifice for the death of the deer, through her growing decision to save the unfortunate girl, to the inevitably emerging bond between the goddess and her future priestess on Taurida.<\/p>\n Ifigenia in Aulide<\/em>. Jasmin Delfs (Iphigenia\/Diana). Photo: Falk von Traubenberg<\/span>.<\/p>\n The sophisticated staging made the extraordinary qualities of the musical interpretation all the more powerful. Who knows, this may have been the first time in my life that I witnessed a contemporary performance of a Baroque opera that verged on absolute perfection. I will not grumble that the role of Ulysses, intended for a female soprano, was entrusted to a man (Nicol\u00f2 Balducci), while Farinelli\u2019s successor in the role of Achilles was a singer with a voice less resonant than that of the famous castrato from Apulia (Maayan Licht). Both soloists demonstrated that a well-trained soprano countertenor can be a true heroic voice, comfortable across all registers, agile in coloraturas, secure intonation-wise in huge intervallic leaps, and fluent in the style of Neapolitan bel canto. In the role of Agamemnon Cen\u010di\u0107 once again faced the legend of Senesino and once again emerged victorious from the ordeal, both as a technically sensational singer and a superb actor. A convincing character of Clytemnestra was created by Marie-Ellen Nesi, a singer with an unusually expressive dark mezzo-soprano. Riccardo Novaro\u2019s resonant and supple baritone was flawless in the role of Calchas. However, the most impressive performance may have come from the young Jasmin Delfs in the dual role of Iphigenia and Diana \u2013 because of not only her beautiful, luminous soprano, but also her extraordinary ease and lightness of singing.<\/p>\n Aroma di Roma, a candlelight concert at Ordenskirche St. Georgen. Photo: Clemens Manser<\/p>\n All these wonders would not have happened without Christophe Rousset, leading the soloists and the orchestra of Les Talents Lyriques from the harpsichord with an uncommon sense of the idiom and the richness of the colours contained in the score, with an assured and decisive hand, usually at rather sharp tempi, but with such discipline that nothing was lost from the calibre of this music. The following day the French harpsichordist performed with a dozen or so of the ensemble musicians at a candlelight concert at Ordenskirche St. Georgen, accompanying the excellent Sandrine Piau in a programme comprising two secular cantatas on \u201cRoman\u201d themes, Mont\u00e9clair\u2019s La morte di Lucretia<\/em> and Handel\u2019s Agrippina condotta a morire<\/em>, and Domenico Scarlatti\u2019s cantata Tinte a note di sangue<\/em>, a letter written in blood to an unfaithful lover, interspersed with instrumental pieces by Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti. I was very moved by the evening: a display of the most tender collaboration between the musicians and the legendary singer, who more than made up for the now dull sound of her beautiful soprano with phenomenal technique and incredible maturity of interpretation.<\/p>\n Lucile Richardot. Photo: Clemens Manser<\/p>\n It is a pity that there was no such wisdom in Lucile Richardot\u2019s concert the day before at the Schlosskirche with an attractive programme consisting of arias of the \u201cBaroque sorceresses\u201d \u2013 Medea, Armida and Circe \u2013 with the very capable Jean-Luc Ho at the harpsichord. Her extraordinary, almost tenor-like contralto is still deeply radiant. Her interpretations are getting increasingly mannered \u2013 to the detriment of both her voice and the music. It is possible, however, that I am too harsh on Richardot, still unable to recover from the delight of two evenings that transported me to a completely different dimension of historically informed performance.<\/p>\n This year I went to Bayreuth Baroque for a very brief visit \u2013 to experience an earthquake and a series of aftershocks. In future seasons I expect tsunamis, landslides and musical fires. Cen\u010di\u0107 has already managed to surpass Hitchcock in the art of tension building.<\/p>\n Translated by: Anna Kijak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I generally tend to avoid quoting overused bons mots, but in the case of Bayreuth Baroque I really cannot think of anything other than Hitchcock\u2019s famous recipe for a good film. Max Emanuel Cen\u010di\u0107\u2019s festival began four years ago with a veritable earthquake and tension has been steadily rising ever since. Cen\u010di\u0107 is both the … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-mangusta","4":"post-8360","6":"format-standard","7":"category-posts-in-english","8":"category-wedrowki-operowe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8360"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8369,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8360\/revisions\/8369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/458651234_1342636807032059_7096683947005264747_n.jpg\")
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