Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682)
Un angelo del Paradiso – The Orrigoni Songbook
Silvia Frigato (soprano)
Ensemble Mare Nostrum/Andrea De Carlo
rec. 2021/23, Chiesa di San Silvestro (Chiesa del Gesù), Viterbo, Italy
Texts and translations included
Reviewed as a download
Arcana A571 [68]

Alessandro Stradella was one of the most admired singers and composers of his time. In the former capacity, he was compared with the mythological singer Orpheus, and his compositions were well received. He had good contacts with powerful people, and he took advantage of them when he needed protection. That was often the case; in fact, for most of his life he was on the run, due to his many love affairs and financial malversations. One of his love affairs ended fatally: in 1682 he was murdered by a hired killer, probably sent by an aristocrat who resented Stradella’s relationship with one of his sisters.

Stradella’s oeuvre comprises some sacred music and oratorios, but mainly secular vocal music: operas, serenatas, cantatas and arias. In recent years, Andrea De Carlo, with his Ensemble Mare Nostrum, has recorded a number of vocal works by Stradella. Their success depends not only on the quality of the music but also the way it is performed. The disc under review sheds light on one of the singers who regularly participated in performances of Stradella’s operas and oratorios.

Marc’Antonio Orrigoni was a soprano castrato, who had been in the service of the Duke of Modena since 1677. Little is known of him from the time before that but from that year date the first traces of his activities as an opera singer, as he performed two different roles in an opera by Giovanni Legrenzi in Modena and Milan respectively. His career lasted twenty-five years, during which he participated in performances of operas by some of the main composers of the time, such as Ziani, Pallavicino, Melani, Lonati and Stradella.

The latter was in Genoa during the last four years of his life (1678-1682). During the Carnival season of 1679, three operas were performed: La forza dell’amor paterno, Le garre dell’amor eroico and Il Trespolo tutore. All of them earned much success. The latter was a comedy (recorded complete by De Carlo; Arcana, 2020), about which Stradella wrote: “Monday or Tuesday I will bring the third of my operas to the stage, which is done on a whim, because it is a ridiculous opera, but gorgeous, and it is named Il Trespolo tutore; and since here they are very fond of ridiculous things, I believe it will be a raging success without fail.”

Orrigoni was the first soprano of the company of musicians that the impresari delle comedie of the Teatro del Falcone had engaged for Carnival season 1679, and therefore it seems likely that he sang the principal male roles in all three operas: Antioco, Muzio and Ciro respectively. In April 1681 Stradella’s last oratorio, La Susanna, was performed in Modena. Lucia Adelaide Di Nicola, in her liner-notes, writes: “We can hypothesize, given the lack of any concrete information, that for the Modenese representation of La Susanna, Grossi [Giovanni Francesco Grossi, known as Siface] performed the role of Testo, and Orrigoni and [Giuseppe Maria] Donati the soprano roles of Susanna or Daniele.”

The present disc offers a series of arias from the above-mentioned operas and the oratorio as a kind of ‘songbook’. In reality there is no such a thing: it is entirely imaginary. The arias are performed at random order: no attempt seems to have been made to put them together as a kind of dramatic story, and that is just as well. In between the arias, the ensemble plays instrumental movements from the same operas, but also three others, dating from earlier in Stradella’s career.

In the course of time, I have reviewed a number of recordings of Stradella’s music, among them some of his operas and have each time been impressed by their quality. That also goes for the present disc, which is an ideal way to get to know his music. The connection between text and music is striking, as is the way Stradella manages to express its meaning. Listen, for instance, to two very different arias by Antioco from La forza dell’amor paterno, the bellicose ‘Non vedi che Jove’ and then the lament ‘Lasso, che feci’. In the former Silvia Frigato is really on fire, whereas she sings the latter with great intensity of expression. The highlight is undoubtedly the longest aria in the programme, ‘Da chi spero aita, oh cieli’ from La Susanna, which is highly disturbing, vocally and instrumentally, and Frigato’s performance is breathtaking. Here the instrumental ensemble is impressive as well, just as in the instrumental items, which are also very different in character.

This disc is not only a monument to what was apparently a great singer, but also to the composer, whose turbulent lifestyle and early violent death should not overshadow the brilliance of his music. He was a revered for a reason.

Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen

Contents
Le garre dell’amor eroico: 
Sinfonia to the opera
aria (Muzio): Sì, che l’ucciderò
Sinfonia to Act II
aria (Muzio): Sorte crudele d’amor m’allettò
Sinfonia to Act III
La forza dell’amor paterno: 
Sinfonia to the opera
aria (Antioco): Notte, amica de’ riposi
aria (Antioco): Non vedi che Giove
Sinfonia to Act III
aria (Antioco): Lasso, che feci, oh dio
aria (Antioco): O morire o libertà
Il Trespolo tutore: 
aria, recitative and aria (Ciro): Quant’è falso che faccia l’amore
Il novello Giasone: 
sarabanda – balletto delle Furie
balletto d’Amorini – sarabanda – presto
La Susanna: 
aria (Daniele): Collegata col potere
Scipione affricano: 
sinfonia dove si battono tanti colpi quante son le note
ballo de’ Ciclopi
La Susanna: 
aria (Susanna): Da che spero alta, oh cieli
Scipione affricano: 
ballo degli Schiavi
La Susanna: 
aria (Susanna): Zeffiretti che spiegate
Scipione affricano: 
comparsa de’ combattenti
Il Girello: 
ballo (act II)
ballo de’ Satiri (Act I)
Le garre dell’amor eroico: 
aria (Muzio): Respiri, che vita mi date
La Susanna: 
aria (Daniele): Così va, turbe insane, così va
Il Girello: 
balletto di Diavoli intorno a Girello, che lo vestono

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