Prologue Luigi Rossi (1597-1653) 6 Il palazzo incantato overo La guerriera amante: 3. 22 Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) Prologue Vaghi rivi (La Pittura) 1 L’Orfeo: Toccata and Prologue Dal mio Permesso amato 7. 21 Premiered in Rome, Teatro delle Quattro Fontane, 1642 (La Musica) Premiered in Mantova, Palazzo Ducale, 1607 Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) 7 L’Ormindo: Sinfonia and Prologue Non mi è Patria l’Olimpo 7. 24 Giulio Caccini (1551-1618) (L’Armonia) 2 L’Euridice: Prologue Io che d’alti sospir (La Tragedia) 3. 59 Premiered in Venice, Teatro San Cassiano, 1644 Premiered in Florence, Palazzo Pitti, 1602 Pietro Antonio Cesti (1623-1669) Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) 8 Il Pomo d’oro, Sinfonia and Prologue Amore et Imeneo 6. 12 3 La Didone: Sinfonia and Prologue Caduta è Troia (Iride) 4. 03 (La Gloria Austriaca) Premiered in Venice, Teatro San Cassiano, 1640 Premiered in an open-air theatre in Vienna, 1668 Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682) 4 L’Eritrea: Prologue Nelle grotte arimaspe (Iride) 3. 29 9 Sinfonia a due violini e basso 6. 42 Premiered in Venice, Teatro Sant’Apollinare, 1652 Pietro Antonio Cesti (1623-1669) Stefano Landi (1587-1639) 10 L’Argia: Sinfonia e Prologo De’ gotici splendori (Amore) 5. 03 5 Il Sant’Alessio: Sinfonia and Prologue Roma son io (Roma) 9. 54 Premiered in Innsbruck’s Court Theatre, 1655 Premiered in Rome, Palazzo Barberini, 1632 Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682) il pomo d’oro 11 Prologo per musica. La Pace incatenata che dorme, 9. 19 si risveglia e dice: Con meste luci Enrico Onofri first violin (Marco Minnozzi, Ravenna 2016) Premiered in Rome, [?] 1668 Alfia Bakieva second violin (Eriberto Attili, Rome 2010) Maria Cristina Vasi viola (Franz Josef Knitl, Mittenwald 1795) Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) Ludovico Minasi cello (Eriberto Attili, Rome 2011), gamba (Marco Nuñez Rodriguez, Sevilla 2009) 12 Gli equivoci in amore, o vero La Rosaura: 7. 35 Rodney Prada gamba (Carlo Chiesa, Milan 1998), lirone (Paolo Biordi, Florence 1999) Sinfonia and Prologue Cessate, oh fulmini! (Venere) Riccardo Coelati Rama violone in D (Anonymous, Mittenwald 1700), violone in G Premiered in Rome, Palazzo della Cancelleria, 1690 (Serafino Casini, Florence 1929) Giangiacomo Pinardi archlute (Juan Carlos Soto, San José [Costa Rica] 2004) Total playing time: 74. 31 Marta Graziolino harp a tre registri (Enzo Laurenti, Bologna 2008) Federica Bianchi harpsichord (Florindo Gazzola, Bassano del Grappa 1992) and organ (Francesco Zanin, Codroipo 1995) In Monteverdi's Toccata, track 1: Concept and repertoire selection: Gabriele Cassone trumpet (Cristian Bosc 2010) Francesca Aspromonte and Enrico Onofri Matteo Macchia trumpet (Cristian Bosc 2010) Corrado Colliard trumpet (Piero Callegari/Cristian Bosc 1993) Ermes Giussani trumpet (Cristian Bosc 2014) Francesca Aspromonte organ (Francesco Zanin, Codroipo 1995) In Landi’s Sant’Alessio (track 5) and in Rossi’s Palazzo incantato (track 6): Francesca Aspromonte, soprano Katarzyna Solecka third violin (Adam Bartosik, Myslenice 2007) il pomo d’oro Enrico Onofri, musical director Francesca Aspromonte © Nicola dal Maso “Chi ben comincia è a metà dell’opera [Well begun is half done]”, says an old Italian proverb. The orchestra tunes in the pit. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome! The show is about to start, please turn off your mobile phones. We kindly remind you that it is forbidden to take pictures. We wish you a pleasant evening.” Meanwhile backstage, there is someone who mumbles his last vocalisations to check that everything is in place. A few words are exchanged with the stage manager and between colleagues: “in bocca al lupo, toi toi toi, break a leg. Don’t worry, you’ll be great.” Suddenly the audience applauds as the conductor arrives in the pit, and the orchestra begins to play: the overture! With the heart racing, now is my moment! The curtains open and there, La Musica strides ceremoniously across the footboards, no, wait, it is The Art of Painting... no, Rome? Harmony, Tragedy, Venus, Iris, Cupid…ah, well: the Prologue! The Prologue, this ubiquitous protagonist of 17th-century opera, the beginning before the beginning, a show of gratitude to Maybe by the end of the opera many will forget what the any royalty in attendance, the prequel, the weather report, the Allegory on duty was speaking about, but no one can ever ringmaster… a sort of baroque master of ceremonies. forget how thrilling it was to hear her sing in her own way, “Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening!” The Prologue! It is a universe full of allegorical characters who take great pleasure in talking about themselves, their history On this CD it is true that the opera is never going to and their importance, using the audience almost as a mirror commence, and that as every track fades into the other, to admire themselves. They are of a world apart from the story we find a new greeting, a new beginning. But finally these of the opera; however, it can start only after they leave the characters will have the chance to descend from their stage. They know what is going to happen, and how pedestals, walk off the stage and reach out to the listeners everything will end. lying on their couches, to whisper in their ears where they come from…what colour was the Queen’s hair…how Sometimes they are there to offer us clues; sometimes they beautiful and starry is the midsummer night’s sky…in Venice. celebrate the wedding or the birth of the new heir to the throne; or they set the scene where the story will take place…paying Francesca Aspromonte special attention to the weather! Singing the Prologue is a pure rush of adrenaline which sparks the energy that must last until the end, as even if it is the fourteenth show, to the audience it is always the Premiere. Enrico Onofri © Enzo Alessandra In the early days of opera, librettists and composers felt the need to get into the heart of their plays in a cautious way, as if they were to prepare the public for the strength of the passions that would have overwhelmed the listeners during the opera. And so they began to entrust allegorical or mythological characters with the task of explaining to the listeners the events narrated in the booklet, or at least giving them the sense of what fate or the gods were preparing: the prologue was born, where - rather than Dido, Poppea or Orfeo - it were actually virtues, goddesses, cities or even nations that sang about events and emotions, or sanctioned mottoes and morals. At the beginning it was a short sonnet, a sort of ‘amuse-bouche’ in music lasting a few minutes, but it soon became a small work in its own right: the allegorical characters were animated by human passions, sometimes fighting to defend the true characters. Among these prologues, there is the superb one from Claudio Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo, one of the first operas ever written, where Music itself takes the word (or rather takes song): the long journey begins with the opera that sings about herself. The prologue then disappeared slowly during the late Baroque period, perhaps not to distract the audience from the completeness and formal beauty of the rest of the drama. This program, dedicated entirely to seventeenth-century prologues from Monteverdi to Scarlatti, will not be a museum that exhibits “I am Music…” the necessary ground with remarkable busts and heads without bodies, but - on the contrary - a theatre full of efficiency — combining invocation small, complete dramas: the opera before the opera. For this reason, we The character delivering the prologue to (to the Gonzagas), explanation (the decided to give a dramatic unity to the recording through the succession Claudio Monteverdi’s first opera, Orfeo subject and setting), and exhortation of the various prologues - as if, together, they form a representation in a (1607), takes time to identify herself. She (to silence) — all by way of an allegorical single act - although the subject of each one is different. comes from the river Permessus (flowing character whose chief role was to defend from Mount Helicon, sacred to the Mus- the indefensible: that a drama could be The prologues that involved the participation of several characters were es) to address “illustrious heroes,” that performed in music throughout. adapted to the context of this album, giving these lines to the solo voice is, the ruling Gonzaga family of Mantua, and excluding the dialogues. The prologue of Il Sant'Alessio by Stefano but only in the second stanza of the text Monteverdi and Striggio built on the Landi does not introduce a "drama for music" but an oratorio; it is the do we discover her name: “I am Music, precedent established seven years earlier only sacred composition on this album. One of the prologues (La Pace who with sweet accents knows how to by the Florentine poet, Ottavio Rinuccini. incatenata) also does not belong to any opera: it is part of a series of calm every troubled heart” and “to in- His libretto for Euridice — the first opera separate prologues composed by Alessandro Stradella, probably to serve flame the coldest minds now with noble to survive complete — was intended for as an introduction to theatrical works of other composers. Last but not anger and now with love.” La Musica performance during the festivities for the least, it was decided to approach an instrumental piece from a theatrical then invokes the harmony of the spheres wedding of Maria de’ Medici and King and dramatic perspective, (Stradella’s Sinfonia for two-violins and bass) (stanza 3), announces the subject of Henri IV of France in October 1600. Two acting as an intermezzo here, almost allowing a sort of change of scene the forthcoming opera (the story of rival settings were composed by Jacopo within our imaginary representation.