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RECORDINGS
Opera and Oratorio
HANDEL: EZIO
 Hallenberg, Gauvin, Prina, Andersen; Giustiniani, Priante; Il Complesso Barocco, Curtis. Text and translations. Archiv Produktion 477-8073 (3)
Handel's Ezio was initially a flop, receiving only five performances in 1732, yet it was among the first of the composer's operas to be revived in the twentieth century, at the hands of well-meaning German musicologists who slashed da capo arias and transposed castrato roles down an octave so that basses, and not ladies in trousers, could sing them. What drew their attention to Ezio was probably the libretto by the classy Metastasio, whose work epitomized the rigid conventions of opera seria, but who proved to be not such a great fit with Handel. (After Siroe, Poro and Ezio, the composer turned again to other writers.) Yet in spite of the libretto's constraints — the rigid alternation of recitative and da capo arias, the absence of duets or any other ensembles, and serious plot manipulations to manage "exit arias" — Handel invested the music with real emotion, using striking tonalities, unexpected scoring and a rich variety of instrumental and vocal writing to create a strong and beautiful work.
Conductor Alan Curtis and his orchestra, the superb Complesso Barocco, understand Handel's idioms and respond to the musical drama, supporting the cast in bringing Handel's music to life. (Incredibly, Curtis often raises objections from Handel fans for "leaving too much up to the singers" and not fussing around with the continuo personnel.) Here the soloists, many long-time Curtis associates, deliver the recitatives, especially in the highly charged Act II climax, with such theatrical power and tight pacing that one wonders whether Handel's singers (who probably didn't even rehearse the recitatives) came anywhere near this dramatic level. Curtis's only misjudged movement is the final gavotte, in which each of the good guys gets a turn to sum up events. The extremely slow tempo encourages super-fast divisions from the singers (or perhaps the divisions came first and the tempo was slowed to accommodate them), which sound forced and out-of-place.
Ezio's plot concerns the rivalry between the Roman emperor Valentinian and his general Aetius (both alto castratos) and the envy of the patrician Maximus (tenor), whose daughter Fulvia (the prima donna) becomes a political pawn. The emperor's sister Honoria (female alto) and Varus (bass), the head of the imperial guard, influence the outcome.
Curtis seems to prefer the color, flexibility and expressiveness of female mezzo-sopranos for castrato roles, and his casting of Ann Hallenberg as the more sympathetic Ezio (Aetius) and Sonia Prina in the role of the irritated and bristly Valentiniano, is spot-on. Hallenberg, with her smooth, lyric voice, does exemplary work portraying Ezio's nobility, especially in the forthright "Recagli quell'acciaro," which, like so many of Ezio's arias, begins without a lengthy setup, and in the beautifully serene ending of Act II, in which the mezzo conveys Ezio's quiet triumph with internalized energy and luxuriant tone (obviously one of the specialties of the role's creator, Senesino). In contrast, Prina uses her darker, edgier voice to convey Valentiniano's paranoia, in the muscular lines of "Per tutto il timore," and his pomposity, in the wildly ornamented opening aria, "Se tu la reggi." Only Marianne Andersen is miscast in the female role of Onoria; her stiff, colorless sound resembles that of a countertenor, confusing the ear, and her singing lacks the theatricality achieved by her colleagues.
As Fulvia, soprano Karina Gauvin digs into her two luscious accompanied recitatives with real feeling (the text to one of them, "Misera, dove son?," is better known as a concert aria by Mozart), and she caresses the limpid, supple lines of "Finche un zeffiro soave," whose curious, hesitant energy (all those tied notes and syncopations) brings Act I to an unhurried close. Although Gauvin's habit of clipping vowels short makes her often sound irked in recitatives, she has a beguiling way of feigning legato in aria singing, and her delivery of the spacious, shining aria "La mia costanza" is just right.
Bass Vito Priante brings ringing tone to "Già risonar" (clearly a precursor to "The Trumpet Shall Sound") and to the octave leaps and forthright scales of "Nasce al bosco," one of the opera's best arias and a piece Handel recycled at least once. Tenor Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani sounds youthful in his fatherly role, but he handles the villain's first aria, "Il nocchier," with attractive articulation and suggests the character's oily duplicity in "Tergi l'ingiusti lagrime," where Handel's slithery writing offers far more characterization than Metastasio's bland verse. Maybe those old German musicologists were onto something.
JUDITH MALAFRONTE
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