It’s odd that Handel’s Amadigi isn’t better known, given what it has going for it. For a start it’s short, for a Handel opera (these things are relative), and compact, with only four characters unless you count the deus ex machina who pops up for a few minutes at the end. Essentially it’s a drama about two lovers and the two people who are trying to break them up, and it might be straightforward if one of those interfering were not a witch. Audiences at the original London production in 1715 would have thrilled to the magic effects as the sorceress Melissa conjured up one spectacular scene-change after another.
UK audiences have been able to experience something of this recently thanks to English Touring Opera and Garsington, which both staged productions last year. Christian Curnyn was the conductor at Garsington; his recording, made with his regular group, the Early Opera Company, is only the work’s third. All the roles are for high voices, which could have made for unvaried home listening, but there’s an effective contrast between the liquid tone of Tim Mead’s countertenor in the title role and the distinctive steel-cored contralto of Hilary Summers as his false friend Dardano. The two sopranos, Mary Bevan as Melissa and Anna Dennis as Oriana, are closer in tone but both respond with some glorious singing to the way Handel’s music draws their differing characters.
The balance is tilted in favour of slow arias, and there are some lovely examples, including Amadigi’s aria at the Fountain of True Love, backed by soft recorders, and Oriana’s long elegy when she believes Amadigi to be dead. The orchestra is small but evocatively used, with principal oboist Katharina Spreckelsen getting a lot of airtime. The most interesting character is Melissa, who is unexpectedly sympathetic – as is Dardano, whose big aria, Pena tiranna, has an intensity that gives it a claim to be the opera’s emotional heart. Not so straightforward after all – and this recording should help win the opera some new friends.
This week’s other pick
This is another solo recording from pianist Mark Viner, the best friend a neglected composer of piano music could have. This time he has turned his attention to Felix Blumenfeld, born in Ukraine in 1863, and to the set of 24 Preludes he wrote in emulation of Chopin. They fall in fertile ground somewhere between that composer and Rachmaninov, less showy than the latter, full of invention yet to the point, and ripe for rediscovery.
