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ORFEO ED EURIDICE IS WHAT REALLY TOOK MY HEART AWAY!!!
Before to post reviews taken from classical music magazines, here is my assessment of one of my best surprises this year. ORFEO ED EURIDICE (L'Oiseau-Lyre 452 668-2), with Cecilia Bartoli, is what really took hy heart away and it is putting it mildly!
It is about time that discographic editors look further into the works almost forgotten up to now, like for instance L'ANIMA DEL FILOSOFO (Orfeo ed Euridice). Why ORFEO, created in 1791, remains unknown? This opera, filled with a clear symbolism, gathers the quintescence of Haydn's genius: a vibrant music that binds to details to the least twists and turns of feelings, a lyricism that asserts itself in many arias as beautiful and passionate as those of Mozart or Bellini as well as a moving story. We first saw this opera on stage in 1951, at the Florence Mai Festival with Maria Callas in the role of Euridice, followed by another outstanding performance in 1967 with Dame Joan Sutherland in such role. But, it was not until 1995, that Nikaulaus Harnoncourt gave us his stage version with period instruments, played with flying colours by his Contentus Musicus of Vienna. Not forgetting the fascinating Cecilia Bartoli in the role of Euridice.
Right away, I can't stop myself from mentioning the close connection between this discographic version and the stage performance in Vienna in 1995. And, in fact, upon listening, I can't stop but seeing over and over again, in my mind, the unfolding on stage and I tell myself that the result well deserves to take up this work's heritage. The chorus are impressive with pulsations, but also with serenity as it should in a sacred work.
Althrough Harnoncourt and Hogwood both use period instruments, when we compare them, we persuade ourselves that their paths were differents, but at the end, their results are analogous. Upon listening to the discographic version, we understand Cecilia Bartoli's thought when she explained the difference she experienced between the stage presentation and the recording of this work. « Harnoncourt est quelqu'un qui a le courage de prendre la musique à bras le corps, non pas de manière agressive mais sans timidité, pour
montrer ce qu'il éprouve au fond de lui, pour en tirer des accents exaltants. Hogwood est plus discret, plus intime, il sait trouver des sonorités célestes » (diapason, December 1996, p. 30) - that is: Harnoncourt is someone who has the courage to seize the music round the waist, not in an agressive way but without diffidence, to demonstrate what he feels deep inside, to get exultant accents out of it. Hogwood, on the other hand, is more discret, more private, he knows how to find celestial tones.
As usual, with Hogwood, the orchestral and choral writing is worked considerably, with incredible rhythmic and harmonic refinements and constant instrumental surprises. He directs the perfectly disciplined musicians who know how to fathom the particular nature of this music. The resonance of the Academy of Ancient Music is exceptionally fine and beautiful, with sound still amazingly vivid and full of presence. It is unique, and furthermore, it is not only scansion, it changes in chamber music, arabesques tederly intended. We can feel, among the musicians, the inner inspiration and soul expression that animates the interventions of the chorus and the solists. We are caught in the motion and any detail is constantly in the mind, the sensuality and we would even dare say human being.
What also holds our attention, is the variety of characters that appear in a more or less short appearance before disappearing. In this occurrence, it is proper to praise each of them, directed by a vigilant conductor who pays attention to the credibility of each of them. It radiates with the most charming simplicity, the most sophisticated litherness. Brillance, elegance of phrasing, balanced contrasts, heartily tones in the cantabile movements make every details perceivable, all the secrets of this magnifient music. The clarity and the intelligibility of the voice interventions dazzle us.
And what to say about Uwe Hellmann, whose timbre fascinates and resonates in the role of Orfeo, expressing the stupor of pain, the passion and the despair. It is an helpless, destroyed by sorrow, left to its insanity Orfeo that he manages to impose.
The great surprise is to discover that, like Dame Joan Sutherland, Cecilia Bartoli incarnates the two feminine roles in the discographic version. Very unusual of bringing to life two characters through one and the same voice. But Bartoli brillantly explains this choice in the booklet. As of the first listening, even if I have heard Cecilia Bartoli in all of her recordings, I have been taken by surprise, overtaken by artistry at once prescient and spontaneous, dimpled with loving nuance yet triumphantly overarching. It was a stroke of genius to cast Cecilia Bartoli as the sybil!!! In Genio, she glorifies the character with such purity, such tenderness and such mystery in transmitting the character's secret: Genio has a soul. She is Orfeo's soul, like Euridice. The clarity of her diction ensures that everything this spiritual guide utters is etched into the listener's imagination. In the aria « Al tuo seno fortunato » (To your joyous breast), the mezzo with a gold and velvet voice and a silky style uses a radiant timbre, a transcendent virtuosity, close to perfection. The coloratura that makes many shivers, finds in this character of Genio, a convenient part. Bartoli delights by her vivacity. She has never sounded more spontaneous in her brillance than here as Genio: she is both agile and powerful. She lightens her voice delightfully, and consistently sings with fine and full control as a dazzling Genio.
But the most important of all, is the presence of Cecilia Bartoli in the role of Euridice. She gives all its entiere operatic and cantabile dimension to this role; it is just as striking when we listen to her than on stage. And, Cecilia Bartoli, as we could expect from her, incarnates a touching Euridice, glorious timbre with particular harmonics. What thrilling instrument she possesses!!! Bartoli's voice can negociate scales as deftly as flutes, trill as swiffly as piccolos, and caress a cavatina as tenderly as clarinets. As usual, Bartoli does not confuse transparency with triviality. The emotion rises immediately from the timbre, the phrasing and the voice conducting - suffusing every bar with meaning and passionate continuity, every part urgently or conversationally confiding, yet none out of place in an infallibly exquisitely balanced expressive sweep. She is deeply moving with her capacity to express troubles, conflics and the agonies of Euridices, so present that she seems to become the center of the drama as soon as she begins to sing, from her first recitative followed by her painful aria « Filomena abbandonata » (Philomena, abandonned by her mate) which she sings as an opening in the opera. Her moving interpretation after Euridice is bitten by the snake is expressed with a penetrating vocal intensity. Such vocal
modulation in « M'abbandona il respiro » (My breath abandons me) assums a meaning tone that immediately restrained, while the depth of her distress is revelated by the alteration of her voice. Bartoli sings in the pianissimo realization of terror through a more sparing lyricism. There is something in her voice, penetrating and darkly mysterious, which brought one immediately to fear. The following cavatina « Del mio core, il voto estremo » (The last desire of my heart) drawn a plaintive, increasingly dark and painful timbre from her who transforms her ultime blow of love toward Orfeo into a seemingly irresistible outpoint of longing and desire. In this role on disc (as weel as on stage), Cecilia Bartoli is moving and, who knows, if she hadn't interpreted this role, perhaps I would never discover this work of art.
This opera figures among the major pieces of Haydn's repertoire like LA VERA CONSTANZA, ORLANDO PALADINO, ARMIDA, L'INFIDELTA DELUSA or essentially bouffe works like LA CANTERINA or LO SPIZIALE. It constitutes a capital archive of Haydn's music and must figure next to its peers. This discographic version is, without a doubt, a version of reference. A triumph. A treasure. A classic. Don't miss this.
L'Oiseau-Lyre's presentation is exemplary, as usual, with complete texts into French, English and German. Most warmly recommended.
All that remains is for us to enjoy this work and wait to discover ARMIDA, which will be presented, in summer 1998, at Austria's Styriarte Festival with, as top of the bill, Harnoncourt and, of course, Bartoli.
Sources of comparaison: Orfeo Records 262932 (Hager); Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 77229 (Schneider); Myto Recordings 90529 (Bonynge, Sutherland)
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ORFEO ed EURIDICE is what really took my heart away!!! 
