Nicola Porpora (1686-1768)
L’aureo serto
Sergio Foresti (baritone)
Abchordis Ensemble/Andrea Buccarella
rec. 2021, Landgasthof Riehen, Riehen, Switzerland
CHALLENGE CLASSICS CC72924 [62]
Porpora is noted as one of the prominent contemporaries – and rivals – of Handel within the world of opera seria in the first half of the 18th century in Europe. But with the continued revival of such Baroque operatic repertoire, he has rightly come to be appraised in his own right as a major composer as well as an important singing teacher. As the informative booklet notes with this CD also justly point out, the Naples-based composer was instrumental in the development of the new and simpler, more melody-driven style of vocal composition which emerged in that city in the decades around the 1720s to 1740s. Handel rarely exploited that emerging galant style, despite his operatic heyday in faraway London coinciding with exactly that period, having honed his expertise in opera seria in other Italian centres just over a decade before that period.
This recital of bass arias from Porpora’s sizeable output covers an even wider span than that seminal period by featuring extracts from compositions between 1708 and 1737, and drawing upon not only two operas, but also three oratorios and two serenatas to demonstrate the different genres in which the composer successfully worked. Sergio Foresti’s generally steady, stately singing suits the musical style – as much in the wide leaps of the turbulent storm aria ‘Agitato da più venti’ from the oratorio Il martiro di San Guiovanni Nepomuceno, which remains unstrained and musically secure, or in the calm and wise fatherly voice of Titiro amidst the busy accompaniment of ‘Folle chi sà sperar’ from the serenata L’Angelica, as in his sustained, thoughtful expression of confidence in God for ‘O beato, fortunato’ from the oratorio Il Gedeone.
It is telling that in the extract from one of the latest works on the disc – yet another oratorio, David e Bersabea, from 1734 – despite the advances of the Neapolitan style, Porpora reverts to the older operatic type of aria di furore as the work was written for London where the composer was in competition with Handel. Here Foresti communicates God’s wrath with finely controlled runs and firmly declaimed repeated notes. Similarly, his sturdy delivery of ‘È ver che all’amo intorno’ from Poro coheres well with Giovanni Battista Graziadio’s sonorous bassoon solo.
Contrast is aptly demonstrated in the brief scena from L’Agrippina, the earliest work on the disc from 1708, predating by one year Handel’s opera on the same subject. Although written in Naples, its wit and more conversational style reflects the comic and farcical traditions of Venetian opera as well as looking ahead to the later conventions of opera buffa. Foresti imparts sly nuance to the recitative and knowing inflections to the short phrases of the aria, neatly evoking the world of comic opera.
The Abchordis Ensemble under Andrea Buccarella’s insightful direction set the scene charismatically for each number, with the strings particularly having a lot to do in the faster arias which they despatch cheerfully and energetically. A splendidly pompous tread characterises the typically French overture to the serenata Dejanira, Iole, Ercole, with pronounced dotted rhythms, trouble taken over the trills and appoggiaturas, and sumptuous solo oboe before the tension is released in the succeeding skittish fast section. This is a welcome additional to the catalogue not only because it adds to the modest number of recordings of music by this prolific composer, but also in casting a less usual slant upon the world of Baroque opera and vocal music via this repertoire for bass voice rather than the ubiquitous sopranos and castrati, and follows the same performers’ equally successful disc of other Baroque operas arias for bass.
Curtis Rogers
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Contents
Il martirio di San Giovanni Nepomuceno: Agitato da più venti; Cura che di timor ti nutri e cresci – L’aureo serto e il ricco manto
Il Gedeone: Sinfonia; O Figlio, o Gedeone – O beato, fortunato
L’Angelica: Oh strani agli occhi nostril – Folle chi sà sperar
David e Bersabea: M’hai sprezzato
L’Agrippina: Insomma il far l’amore – Vuole il musico la donna
Poro: Del rivale all’aita – È ver che all’amo intorno
Dejanira, Iole, Ercole: Overture; Idre, arpie, draghi e leoni; Ho già la mente ingombra – Ombre oscure
