GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL 1685-1759 HEROES FROM THE SHADOWS NATHALIE STUTZMANN contralto & direction ORFEO 55 with PHILIPPE JAROUSSKY countertenor 2 1 Sinfonia 1:07 12 Cornelia L’aure che spira 4:28 Poro, 1731 Giulio Cesare, 1724, rev. 1730 2 Polinesso Dover, giustizia, amor 3:30 13 Sinfonia 3:05 Ariodante, 1735 Serse 3 Sinfonia 1:02 14 Cornelia, Sesto Son nata a lagrimar 7:47 Orlando, 1733 Giulio Cesare Sesto: Philippe Jaroussky countertenor 4 Dardano Pena tiranna 5:37 Amadigi di Gaula, 1715 15 Alceste Son qual stanco pellegrino 9:44 Arianna in Creta, 1734 5 Cleone Sarò qual vento 2:24 Cello piccolo: Patrick Langot Alessandro, 1726 16 Bertarido Se fiera belva ha cinto 4:42 6 Arsamene Non so se sia la speme 5:20 Rodelinda, 1725 Serse, 1738 17 Claudio Senti, bell’idol mio 4:47 7 Sinfonia 0:34 Silla, 1713 Partenope, 1730 Theorbo: Michele Pasotti 8 Zenobia Son contenta di morire 4:21 18 Rosmira Io seguo sol fiero 5:40 Radamisto, 1720 Partenope, 1730 9 Ottone Voi che udite il mio lamento 5:40 19 Ballo di pastori e pastorelle 1:25 Agrippina, 1709 Amadigi di Gaula 10 Irene Par che mi nasca in seno 7:01 79:41 Tamerlano, 1724 3 11 Sinfonia 1:25 Scipione, 1726 ORFEO 55 Violins 1 Double bass Maxim Kosinov Pasquale Massaro NATHALIE Nicola Cleary STUTZMANN Guillaume Humbrecht Harpsichord, Organ direction Stephan Dudermel Anna-Maaria Oramo Ching Yun Tu Theorbo Violins 2 Michele Pasotti Satomi Watanabe Bassoon Fanny Paccoud Michele Fattori Patrick Oliva Lucien Pagnon Oboes Emma Black Violas Ingo Müller Marco Massera Marie Legendre Clarinets Toni Salar Cellos Juan Ullibarri Patrick Langot Anna Carewe Horns Lionel Renoux Lionel Pointet 4 5 HEROES The idea for this programme has been niggling for a long time – since, in fact, I first sang the title role in Amadigi. There I was in the spot light singing Amadigi’s great heroic arias and yet I was FROM THE completely transfixed by the beauty of ‘Pena tiranna’, an aria sung by Dardano, a secondary role. SHADOWS It seemed to me so much more interesting and expressive than most of the numbers for my character! Since the start of my career I have been asked to take leading contralto roles in the great Handel operas such as Giulio Cesare, Orlando, Radamisto and many others and I dreamt of being able, if only within the context of a recital, to plunge deliciously into the more shadowy areas of these works and bring into the light the repertoire of secondary or even tertiary characters – those characters the audience for gets about at the end of the evening, but who, for a few minutes during the course of the opera, completely knock them out with some stunning aria. A bit like those extraordinary actors who crop up in films: you know the voice, you know the face, but you can never remember the name. Since then I have been haunted by the idea of putting together a CD recital devoted to these ‘heroes from the shadows’ who exist in every Handel opera. So I made the time to go through all his operas – over forty of them! And during my research I found so many gems that the greatest difficulty, and it was heart-breaking, was to make a choice and to reject so much music. I hope this recording allows listeners to make exciting discoveries of their own, and perhaps to admire and to love even more that extra ordinary genius Handel. Nathalie Stutzmann 6 Heroes from the Shadows Handel’s dramme per musica offer supreme examples of the tensions between heroic and antiheroic characters in baroque opera, and Handel created extraordinary music to convey their deeds, triumphs, adversities, emotional responses and relationships. Whether dramatic personalities are a pair of beleaguered lovers (usually the prima donna and castrato primo uomo), tyrants in crisis struggling towards eventual clemency or scheming and unrepentant villains, they all explore the dramatic themes of valour, duty, virtue, humility, forgiveness and love. Famous masterpieces such as Radamisto (1720), Giulio Cesare (1724), Tamerlano (1724), Rodelinda (1725), Orlando (1733) and Ariodante (1735) depict the eventual triumphs of their heroic protagonists, while other operas present their lead characters in ironic and anti-heroic ways that cross over into affectionate comedy, such as Partenope (1730) and Serse (1738). But in all such cases dramatic interest is sustained by the complexity of situations and motivations that involve a broader group of intriguing ‘secondary’ characters. Their contri bution is vital to the balance and interest of Handel’s dramas, and it should come as no surprise that the composer gives them plenty of outstanding music. The irredeemable villain Polinesso plots in Ariodante to gain the throne of Scotland by destroying Ariodante, fiancé of the princess Ginevra, and marrying her himself. In a plot drawn from Ariosto’s renaissance chivalric epic Orlando furioso that shares some common ground with Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, Polinesso seduces the naïve maid Dalinda and asks her to wear her mistress’s clothes when she receives him at night; he thereby tricks the watching Ariodante into believing that Ginevra is unfaithful. Ginevra is condemned to death unless a champion can be found to defend her; to her dismay the sly Polinesso declares that he will fight for her in Dover, giustizia, amor. Polinesso was com posed for the Italian alto Maria Caterina Negri, and there were plenty of other occasions when Handel wrote for female altos playing villainous male characters. The part of Dardano in Amadigi (1715) was written for Diana Vico, and the melancholy sarabande Pena tiranna depicts the hopeless love Dardano feels for Oriana, the faithful beloved of his best friend Amadigi. Handel’s plaintive oboe and bassoon parts in counterpoint to the gorgeous vocal 7 melody convey the desperation and loneliness of the unhappy lover, who soon after makes a rash pact with the evil sorceress Melissa (who desires Amadigi for herself), which leads to his death. Although in some respects a comic opera, Serse has crucial moments of tragic pathos, such as Arsamene’s Non so se sia la speme in Act One. His beloved Romilda has unwittingly attracted the lustful attentions of his tyrannical brother, the Persian emperor Serse (Xerxes). Exiled because he will not surrender Romilda to Serse, the tender Arsamene laments his mis fortune and yearns to see her again; this was another role en travesti, written for the female mezzo-soprano Maria Antonia Marchesini. The alto Anna Vicenza Dotti sang the sycophant Cleone in Alessandro (1726), an opera domi nated by its trio of leading characters written for the castrato Senesino (Alessandro) and the so-called ‘rival queens’ Cuzzoni (Lisaura) and Faustina (Rossane). Alessandro (Alexander the Great) has become distracted as he flirts with the two competing women, and he alienates himself from his generals when he declares him self a god; Cleone eagerly plans to denounce the conspirators of a plot against him in the furious Sarò qual vento. A nobler kind of indignant rage is depicted in Zenobia’s Son contenta di morire, from Handel’s first version of Radamisto, first per formed by the English alto Anastasia Robinson in April 1720. The libretto, based on an episode described by Tacitus, opens with Radamisto (son of the King of Thrace) and his wife Zenobia besieged by Tiridate (King of Armenia), who is married to Radamisto’s sister but has allowed his lust for Radamisto’s wife to lead to war. As escape seems impossible, Zenobia tells Radamisto that she is ready to die in order to appease the tyrant’s fury, but that she would rather die now than have her cruel stars con tinue to heap their wrath upon her. A softer invocation of hope and love is beautifully captured in Irene’s Par che mi nasca in seno in Tamerlano. The role of Tamerlano’s jilted fiancée (who eventually saves his life) was originally drafted for a soprano, but during the compositional process it was adapted for the alto Dotti, and the woodwind instruments used in this aria were changed from flutes to clarinets. It offers a rare moment of charming softness in an otherwise claustrophobic drama of stark, tragic intensity. The reverse is arguably true of Handel’s only Venetian opera Agrippina (1709), an amoral drama full 8 of sexual and political intrigue in which the ironic tone only occasion ally ripens into sincere melancholy. The only character who exhibits admirable integrity and honesty is the hero Ottone – which means that he is unfortunately little more than fodder for Agrippina’s devious machinations to ensure that her son Nero will succeed Claudius as emperor of Rome. At the heart of the opera, midway through Act Two, Ottone reacts to being suddenly outcast from his lover Poppea and all his former allies in the powerful lament Voi che udite il mio lamento. The role was composed for the alto Francesca Vanini-Boschi, who was married to the bass Giuseppe Boschi (who sang in all of Handel’s London Royal Academy operas during the 1720s). L’aure che spira was originally sung by the young Roman Sesto, determined to avenge his murdered father Pompeo in Giulio Cesare. In Handel’s 1730 revival, adapted for an entirely different cast, the aria was reassigned to Sesto’s mother Cornelia (sung in 1730 by Antonia Merighi) and transposed down to D minor. Sesto’s youthful ardour is thus transferred to Pompeo’s widow, who now has an aria to express the vengefulness that in the 1724 original version was conveyed most clearly in recitative.