Cesti - La Dori (Innsbruck, 2019)

Pietro Antonio Cesti - La Dori (Innsbruck, 2019)

Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, 2019

Ottavio Dantone, Stefano Vizioli, Francesca Ascioti, Rupert Enticknap, Federico Sacchi, Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli, Emőke Baráth, Bradley Smith, Pietro Di Bianco, Alberto Allegrezza

Naxos - Blu-ray

Considering that it was first performed in 1657 and the plot is almost impenetrable, you'd be forgiven thinking that only half of Cesti's opera La Dori had survived. It's actually one of those early operas that has a complicated backstory that is almost as long as the opera itself; its revelations thrown out there only in the last few minutes of the opera. In some cases you wonder even whether it isn't the better part of the opera that has been left out. With a bit of preparation about the history of the characters however, it doesn't take long to see why the focus of the opera is mostly in the aftermath of the more dramatic part of the story, nor see the qualities that Cesti is able to bring to the then still developing art form of opera.

Including the backstory on the opera would in fact probably only make La Dori more difficult than easier to follow. It's one of those stories (see Shakespeare's late Romances for other examples) where babies are stolen by pirates, where princesses get lost at sea, where identities are switched and where everyone important feels the need for obscure reasons to change their identity by adopting a disguise as someone of the opposite sex. If you factor in that the singer can be a woman playing a man's role who switches to a female disguise and vice-versa, (the use of castrati in the original only complicating the matter further), then really it's better off just getting a vague idea of who the characters are, who they are in love with and the torment it causes them trying to do the right thing for the person they love.

If you're happy enough you've got a basic handle on that then you won't be too concerned about following the various obstacles and additional familiar complications thrown their way. And, rather, you will see why Cesti and his librettist Apolloni choose to commence the story of La Dori at the point it does. It's not about creating action drama as much as human drama in music that carries the sense of backstory within the characters, following through on the path that fate has placed before them. In some baroque opera they stay in this conflicted state until fate or a deus ex machina resolves their dilemma and re-establishes order. That's not necessarily how Cesti treats them in his opera.

There's a greater sense of the human agency here, where the disguises they wear are only a means to suggest that there is more to them than they seem to outward appearances. They carry the troubles that fate has left them and face up to the challenges in front of them and strive to turn things around. There's a richness and strength of personality in each that you can be sure will win through diversity. If that is able to come through despite the complications of the plot, it's down to Cesti's music and the way he uses it to progress the development of the characters and the drama, notably in the use of aria and arioso, expanding the language of opera away from expositional recitative.

In terms of plotting it may seem like La Dori is filled with familiar devices that now seem contrived and lacking credibility, but it's here that those devices were first played out and would have a major influence on opera in the following century. If you can look beyond the magic death potion being switched for a love potion in Tristan und Isolde and instead relate to the depth of feelings that are revealed instead  by this device, you should have no problem that an identical switch takes place here. True, this comes on top of a lot of identity and gender switching and a complicated backstory, as well as early baroque conventions like the lusty comic nurse Dirce, but again these are just ways of getting through that everyone, young and old, commoners and royals, have such feelings and ensure similar troubles.

It's not as if you have to work out the knots of a convoluted plot then, since the music makes the characters real and convincing, all the more so when they are sung well in this 2019 production at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. Some of the most complicated identities in fact are not necessarily the expected principals, Dori or Arsinoe the bride who is to marry Oronte in her stead since Dori was stolen by pirates. Take Celinda for example, Arsinoe's maid who is actually Dori's brother Tolomeo, in disguise as a woman who has (as a man) fallen in love with Arsinoe. You have someone like Emőke Baráth singing this and suddenly, like Mozart a century later, you can see that there is no such thing as secondary characters but everyone has an equal and important part to play in the drama of life.

Which evidently is to take nothing away from the other characters and singers who are all equally wonderful. The expression of the characters and their development, shown through the singing, is what holds you in the drama not despite the plot, but as the plot. Oronte's early appearances - lyrically sung by countertenor Rupert Enticknap - all carry a sense of elegance and forbearance on his entrances, only to become imperious and irritable at not being able to control events. Alongside Alessandro Melani, also recently revived with L'Empio Punito, an eye-opening early version of Don Giovanni, with Cesti you can see that Handel's mastery and refinement of Italian opera didn't exactly come out of nowhere.

As with any early opera with a complicated plot and a less familiar form, it can be a challenge to stage something like this in a way that helps engage and audience, but the Innsbruck production directed by Stefano Vizioli does it very well. The period settles for a classical 17th century version of antiquity, period costumes and a kind of palatial room that opens out into Babylonian sands and skies, the director making great use of light and colour to accompany the musical expression.

There's much of historical value in the work, but primarily the performance here is fascinating just to hear the music Cesti composed played and with Ottavio Dantone on harpsichord conducting the Accademia Bizantina on period instruments, it sounds incredible here. There's a real kick to the music, the rhythms that comes across exceptionally well with pristine clarity and detail in the Hi-Res LPCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mixes. There are no extras on the Blu-ray but the booklet contains a tracklist, an essay on the history of the work and an absolutely essential synopsis. It's an all-region BD50, with subtitles in  Italian, English, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Innsbruck Festival of Early Music

Cavalli - Elena

Francesco Cavalli - Elena

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2013

Leonardo García Alarcón, Jean-Yves Ruf, Emőke Baráth, Valer Barna-Sabadus, Fernando Guimarães, Solenn' Lavanant Linke, Rodrigo Ferreira, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Anna Reinhold, Scott Conner, Mariana Flores, Majdouline Zerari, Brendan Tuohy, Christopher Lowrey, Job Tomé

Medici Live Internet Streaming - 11 July 2013

Cavalli operas present considerable difficulties at the best of times, but Elena, one of composer's rarest works, is perhaps one of the most challenging. Quite what tone to set for the work is complicated by the nature of the writing itself, its libretto finished by Nicolò Minato after the death of Cavalli's regular collaborator Giovanni Faustini in 1651. First performed in 1659, the work moreover hasn't been produced in full for over 350 years, and attitudes towards how opera is performed have changed a lot in that time. Is Elena meant to be played as a relatively straight account of the abduction of Helen of Troy or is it more of what the Aix programme describes as a "vaudeville mythologique" or indeed in reference to Offenbach, a "Baroque Belle Hélène"?

The 2013 Aix-en-Provence production, conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón and directed by Jean-Yves Ruf seems to be a little uncertain quite how to play Elena in this regard. When in doubt however, it seems that the best model for playing Cavalli is to look back at his master and mentor, Claudio Monteverdi and in particular at his masterpiece L'Incoronazione di Poppea. Following its innovative approach to mixing of the vulgar and the sublime, the human and the heavenly, Elena seems to assert its own tone quite successfully.

The opera starts out light and humorous, with folk-like dance rhythms marked out on harpsichord, but it's given tremendous colour through Cavalli's writing for woodwind and trumpet, with the lute-like Theorbo used as well for more plaintive laments. The dominant tone however is established when the central relationship of Elena and Menelaus emerges from the complications that ensue when the colourful cast comes into contact with the face that launched a thousand ships, and probably just as many operas. Even the manner in which the situation arises here is a combination of the mythic and the comic, the Prologue being a familiar early Baroque one where the Gods are in dispute. It's an undignified affair to say the least, with Discordia (in disguise as Concordia), setting Juno, Venus and Pallas against one another in a dispute over who is most worthy of the Golden Apple. Discord sown (so to speak), it's determined that the fate of Helen to be joined with Menelaus is not going to be smooth sailing.

That meddling in the affairs of mortals leads, as it does in most Baroque operas, to great complications in the main part of Elena. It's Theseus who abducts Helen, having abandoned his intended Hippolyta (which will have repercussions later), but in doing so he also takes Elisa, an Amazonian slave who has been engaged by King Tyndareus of Sparta as a wrestling assistant for Helen. Elisa however is none other than Meneleas dressed in female clothing, but so good is his disguise that not only has Theseus's colleague Pirithous fallen in love with her, but so too has King Tyndareus. As much then to bring back Elisa as his abducted daughter, the King sends his jester Irus out to find them.

That's just a simplified version of what happens in Act I, but even without bringing in the other players - in disguise and cross-dressing - it's not too difficult to see how such a plot can seem a little bit ridiculous as it descends into bitterness, rivalry and misunderstandings. On the other hand, it also provides plenty of opportunity for a variety of situations and tones, all fuelled by overwhelming mad desires. If what ensues is almost farcical, the sentiments expressed are nonetheless heartfelt. Helen's maid, Astianassa for example, only wishes that someone cared enough to abduct her and sings a beautiful aria of sadness for her position. The same is the case for the spurned Hippolyta, for the Prince Menestheus, who falls in love with Helen on first sight, and for King Tyndareus. Their passions might seem silly to others, but they are real to them.

In its example of showing important historical figures like Nero, Seneca and Poppea to be humans with the same sentiments as everyone else, Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea may indeed be the model to follow in terms of setting the variations of tone to be found in Elena. In many other respects however, Cavalli's writing goes beyond Monteverdi in the richness of the instrumentation, in the supplementation of the basso continuo, but particularly in the writing for voices. In addition to the expected solo laments, much of the plot and interaction between the characters is developed though beautiful duets, and it's used as well to express their compatibility and common accord. Often both voices sing the same words, one a beat behind the other, but the harmony of the voices and the expressions of lyrical beauty are quite extraordinary.

Despite the intervention of many characters and the expression of their desires towards them, it's the duets then between Menelaus and Helen that affirm the rightness of their union. Theseus and Hippolyta also put their differences aside (Theseus apologises to Castor and Pollux, "Sorry for abducting Helen", "That's ok, forgive and forget" they reply!), which also allows Concordia to reign again (temporarily) and the opera to end with a short but beautiful quartet of voices in union. The singing is excellent particularly from these main players - Emőke Baráth as Helen, Fernando Guimarães as Theseus, and Solenn' Lavanant Linke as Hippolyta, but the stand-out performance is undoubtedly that of countertenor Valer Barna-Sabadus as Menelaus.

The stage direction by Jean-Yves Ruf and the set designs by Laure Pichat keep things relatively simple. The stage is small and resembles an arena or a bullring, with a semi-circle of wood fencing behind the players. The period is not classical but closer to 17th century, the production even employing old-style special effects for wind and storms, with billowing sails for those sea journeys. It doesn't always sustain visual interest in what is a long 3-hour opera with a great deal of characters and repetitive situations, but the simplicity and intimacy of the setting is undoubtedly the best way to play a work of this type, and it frames the strengths of Cavalli's writing and supports the fine singing.

Elena at the Aix-en-Provence Festival is available for viewing on-line (with French subtitles) from the Medici and ARTE Live Web sites.