Ombra mai fu Francesco Cavalli 1602-1676 Opera Arias Philippe Jaroussky countertenor Artaserse Alessandro Tampieri violin Raul Orellana violin Marco Massera viola Marco Horvat lirone, guitar Marc Wolff archlute Christine Plubeau viola da gamba Garance Boizot viola da gamba Roberto Fernandez de Larrinoa violone Adrien Mabire cornett, recorder Benoît Tainturier cornett, recorder Michel Claude percussion Angélique Mauillon harp Yoko Nakamura harpsichord Marie-Nicole Lemieux contralto Emo”ke Baráth soprano 2 Xerse 1654 Orione 1653 1 Ombra mai fu 3:19 14 Sinfonia, Prologo 3:29 Statira, principessa di Persia 1656 Eritrea 1652 2 All’armi, mio core 3:05 15 O luci belle 2:29 Emo”ke Baráth Laodicea Erismena 1655 3 Dove mi conducete?... 0:56 Giasone 1649 4 Uscitemi dal cor, lagrime amare 5:47 16 Delizie, contenti 3:49 Calisto 1651 Doriclea 1645 5 Interprete mal buona... 17 Sinfonia, Prologo 1:25 L’uomo è una dolce cosa 2:51 6 Ninfa bella 4:16 Calisto Marie-Nicole Lemieux Linfea 18 Erme, e solinghe cime... Lucidissima face 3:26 Eliogabalo composed 1667 7 Sinfonia, Atto 1 1:58 La virtù de’ strali d’Amore 1642 19 Alcun più di me felice non è 1:03 Elena 1659 8 Ecco l’idolo mio... Pompeo Magno 1666 Mio diletto, mio sospiro 3:35 20 Cieche tenebre 2:24 Emo”ke Baráth Elena Xerse Ercole amante 1662 21 La bellezza è un don fugace 2:13 9 Sinfonia, Atto 1 0:54 La virtù de’ strali d’Amore Eliogabalo 22 Il diletto interrotto... 0:41 10 Io resto solo?... Misero, così va 3:27 23 Desia la verginella 2:33 Ormindo 1644 La virtù de’ strali d’Amore 11 Che città 3:19 24 Che pensi, mio core? 2:52 Gli amori d’Apollo e di Dafne 1640 65:13 12 Ohimè, che miro?... 0:53 13 Misero Apollo 4:20 3 Ombra mai fu Since the start of my career I have had many oppor - tunities to perform music by Francesco Cavalli, one of the most influential composers in operatic history. Although he didn’t invent the genre, he played a key role in popularising it. His music accompanies the on-stage drama with pin-point accuracy – Cavalli had a gift for writing both powerful lamenti and the comic-burlesque scenes typical of his day, creating operas full of variety and brimming with life. Reflecting contemporary Venetian society to perfection, they remain an endless source of delight. Philippe Jaroussky 4 Eros on the lagoon at the Basilica in 1639, the year in which his first opera Cavalli’s contribution to Venetian opera was staged. In 1665 Cavalli obtained the coveted job of first organist and in 1668 he was appointed maestro Of the thirty-three operatic scores produced by di cappella, a post previously held by his mentor Monte - Francesco Cavalli between 1639 and 1673, twenty-seven verdi, to whom he paid tribute in his final surviving survive, making his catalogue the richest single collection work, Eliogabalo, whose attractive tripartite sinfonia of seventeenth-century Venetian opera. Cavalli’s works is included here. Its opening Andante is followed by an provide an invaluable record of a distinctive genre, one Allegro, before the overture ends with the first operatic which established itself as such, with its own codes and appearance of a tarantella rhythm. characteristics as regards structure, roles and themes. While the early Venetian drammi per musica still had In Venice, opera very quickly became a public art one eye on the features of court opera, opting for mytho - form, as opposed to the original court-based spectacle. logical or pastoral plots and displaying a certain reliance Although opera was born in Florence, at the turn of the on sumptuous stagings, the adoption of historical story - seventeenth century, it was Venice that invented public lines and parody would imprint a kind of local hallmark opera in 1637, establishing a production system on by adding to these two components the erotic dimension which opera houses are still based today (impresarios, that was such an inherent part of Venetian morality. increasing numbers of competing theatres, troupes The theme of sensual exaltation, be it pastoral, erotic of singers and instrumentalists affiliated to theatres, or influenced by some form of denial, runs through the composers and librettists engaged under contract). The entirety of Cavalli’s production, from his first opera, Republic also had its own heritage of theatrical and Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo (1639), to Eliogabalo (1667, musical traditions, which opera now blended together unstaged in his lifetime). His compositional genius to create a new and original synthesis, effectively fusing went hand in hand with the talent of the dramatists with a number of different registers (pastoral, tragic, comic, whom he worked – writers who were ‘poets for music’ epic and romance). Given the status of Venice as a major (poeta per musica) rather than simple ‘librettists’, a trading centre, opera very quickly became an industry pejorative term yet to be coined. He collaborated with almost exclusively serving the general public, and it was no fewer than thirteen writers, and although most of audiences who ended up dictating demands to composers them, gifted theatrical drama tists, became genuine pro - and, above all, librettists. fessionals – men such as the prolific Giovanni Faustini or Because of his relative longevity (1602-76), Cavalli, Aurelio Aureli – others belonged to what might be called born Francesco Caletti-Bruni, single-handedly embodies the literary aristo cracy, as members of the prestigious a repertoire that underwent a significant evolution in academies that retained an élitist conception of dramatic the space of a few decades. He was involved in Venetian poetry, in line with Renaissance ideals. This was true of musical life from a young age, initially as a singer at Orazio Persiani, author of Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo, St Mark’s, when he was just fourteen, then climbing the Giulio Strozzi (Veremonda), Francesco Melosio (Orione) 5 various rungs that led him to the post of second organist and Giovanni Andrea Moniglia (Hipermestra) – the works Cavalli created with the latter three were staged English and may well have been seen by Purcell. In in a courtly context. The prime example of this group Idraspe’s lament, preceded by a griefstricken recitative, was Giovanni Francesco Busenello, a founder member each word is emotionally charged and underlined by of the Accademia degli Incogniti, which played an an ostinato bass, a distinctive feature of the convention important role in the development of opera in Venice; that can also be heard in Alexander’s lament from four of Busenello’s five librettos were written for Cavalli Eliogabalo (‘Misero, così va’), in which the eponymous (Gli amori d’Apollo e di Dafne, Didone, Giulio Cesare – ruler’s virtuous cousin and designated successor reveals the score of which is lost – and Statira). Published in a his despair at having been separated from his beautiful single collection (Delle ore ociose, Venice, 1656)1, they beloved, now the object of the young emperor’s constitute a remarkable synthesis of the development insatiable lust. His lament reflects the precepts of of Venetian opera during the seventeenth century. Monteverdi’s seconda pratica and thus defies the more The twenty or so excerpts recorded for this album contemporary trend for a certain degree of gratuitous are not presented in chronological order, but were virtuosity. The lament convention is notable first and chosen to provide a representative sample of Cavalli’s foremost for its stylistic consistency: written twenty- manière, and of the poetic-musical forms that distinguish seven years earlier, Apollo’s lament in Gli amori d’Apollo his works for the stage. While undeniably influenced e di Dafne, in which the god mourns his beloved nymph, by Monteverdi, Cavalli’s style is marked by the extreme now transformed into a laurel tree (‘Misero Apollo’), fluidity of his vocal lines, with a continuous focus on uses the same poetic and musical conventions, character - bringing out the emotional potential of the text, in both ised by a dactylic rhythm (one long syllable followed recitar cantando (speaking in song) – this being most the by two short, e.g. Mi-se-ro), particularly effective in important style in the early decades of Venetian opera, convey ing sorrow. In a similar register, and inherited responsible for conveying affective expression and from canonical poetic forms, the madrigalesque aria for advancing the action – and in the various closed forms Erino (‘Desia la verginella’) could have come straight (arias, duets and ensembles) that Cavalli employed, from a poem by Tasso or Guarini. Faustini’s finely hewn including mad scenes and love duets. Most importantly, lines in this, his first collaboration with the composer the composer and his librettists developed a new con - (La virtù de’ strali d’Amore was first staged at the Teatro vention that fell between recitative and aria – the lament, San Cassiano in 1642, the same year as Monteverdi’s an impassioned outburst of emotion whose musical line L’incoronazione di Poppea), inspire a setting that adheres traces, like the beating of a heart, the vicissitudes and closely to the prosody of the text – a highly effective afflictions of the soul. Cavalli’s entire production brims example of recitative style applied to a closed form. with laments, the magnificent ‘Uscitemi dal cor, lagrime The same kind of classical poetry enlivens the shepherd amare’ from Erismena being an emblematic example. The Clarindo’s monostrophic aria in the same opera (‘Alcun Venetian writer Aureli’s dramma, his first collaboration più di me / felice non è’); this being one of Cavalli’s with the composer, was one of his greatest successes; it earlier operas, it still draws on the conventions of the 6 even travelled as far as London, where it was staged in Florentine pastoral which considered recitar cantando to be the dominant style and the best manner of convey - who has previously been disguised as a young woman in ing the emotions expressed by the text.