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Fanfare Magazine - Vol. 26:2 (Nov./Dec. 2002)


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Reviewer: Brian Robins

VIVALDI/CORSELLI Farnace, RV 711 • Jordi Savall, cond; Furio Zanasi (Farnace); Adriana Fernandez (Berenice); Sara Mingardo (Tamiri); Gloria Banditelli (Selinda); Sonia Prina (Pompeo); Cinzia Forte (Gilade); Fulvio Bettini (Aquilio); Coro del Teatro de la Zarzuela; Le Concert des Nations (period instruments) • ALIA VOX AV 9822 (3 CDs: 175:17 )

The end product of Jordi Savall’s Farnace project was taken from two staged performances given in October 2001 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, and it is worth reiterating at the outset the recording has been prepared with exemplary care. Although the sound picture allows us to hear the movements of the performers around the stage, as Savall points out above, they must have been wearing carpet slippers. There is nothing like the level of stage noise one hears on the Avie recording of Handel’s Tamerlano (also reviewed in this issue), the audience is miraculously quiet, and there is no obtrusive applause of the kind heard on the Handel set.

Farnace is said to have been Vivaldi’s own favorite among his operas. It was certainly one of the most successful, being frequently revived following its first performances at Venice’s Teatro S. Angelo during the Carnival period of 1727. The libretto was by Antonio Luccini, with whom Vivaldi had collaborated previously, most recently on Dorilla in Tempe in 1726. (Incidentally, if the 1993 Pierre Verany set of Dorilla can still be found it should be snapped up. It is one of the best recordings of a Vivaldi opera made to date). In the instance of Farnace, the book was not new, having originally been prepared for Vinci, who set it twice, in 1724, and again in 1729. The plot concerns the fortunes of the beleaguered Farnace, the eldest son of King Mitridate, King of Pontus. Farnace treacherously betrayed his father, an implacable foe of Roman colonialism, the story of which and Mitridate’s subsequent noble suicide is told in Racine’s play (and, with variants, in Mozart’s early opera seria). His successor has now been defeated by an alliance between the Roman forces of Pompey and Mitridate’s vengeful wife, in Farnace called Berenice. To add dramatic spice to this scenario, Farnace is married to Tamiri, Berenice’s daughter by another husband.

The stage is thus set for the powerful emotional situations that arise in Farnace, which opens with the eponymous king demanding of Tamiri the sacrifice of both her and his young son in the event of final defeat. At the heart of the opera lie the conflicting emotions of the proud, stubborn king, his autocratic relationship with his wife, and tender love for his son. Leaving aside his previous treachery, barely alluded to here, he cuts a dignified and poignant figure who has something in common with Handel’s Bajazet in Tamerlano. Vivaldi gives him a fine variety of contrasting arias, the finest of which, “Gelido in ogni vena” has already been mentioned in the above interview. It comes in the second of the three acts, as he mistakenly believes that Tamiri has carried out his orders to kill their son. Starting from a deep, throbbing bass, the aria is pervaded by slow, tragically inflected falling scales, over which the distraught father pours out his grief. The effect is quite overwhelming, particularly given the intensity of Zanasi’s superbly projected singing. He is equally convincing as magisterial authoritarian (or bullying husband—take your pick) in “Ricordati che sei” (act I), and in the heroic defiance of “Spogli pur l’inguista Roma” (act II). This is another splendid aria, the furious tremolando strings and angularity in both orchestral and vocal parts vividly conveying the anger Farnace directs toward “iniquitous Rome.” As Savall mentioned, the role was written for a tenor, but Zanasi’s splendid vocal acting and mostly accurate singing over a wide range fully justifies Savall’s decision to use a baritone.

Equally as committed is Sara Mingardo’s wonderful portrayal of the long-suffering Tamiri. Strong in adversity, intensely loyal to an autocratic husband, and a loving mother hated by her own mother, she emerges in a particularly sympathetic light. Extraordinarily, Alia Vox’s note writer speaks of her as a secondary character, apparently on no better grounds than to prove his argument that Vivaldi conformed to opera seria convention by distinguishing the importance of the dramatis personae according to the number of arias he gave each of them. Perhaps Vivaldi envisaged such an interpretation when adding in 1738 the magnificent and extended accompanied recitative referred to by Savall. In this, Tamiri, having disobeyed her husband’s command, hides her son safely in the depths of a pyramid before intending to carry out his order to kill herself. Mingardo is here at her most moving, as indeed she is in the act III aria in which she senses a weakening of Farnace’s stern resolve. Both Tamiri’s other pieces are “simile” arias, surprisingly so in the instance of “Arsi da rai cocenti” (act II). Here, immediately following a dramatic peak in which Tamiri has experienced terrible confrontations with both mother and husband that achieve an awful end-of-scene symmetry (“You are no daughter/wife of mine”), rather than vent her grief she compares herself to “a wretched plant scorched in the burning sun.” Possibly at this point both librettist and composer felt that Tamiri’s grief would be too great to express, thus placing her emotions at one remove, as it were, by employing simile.

Berenice, whose thirst for revenge provides much of the drama, is a far less rounded character, remaining little more than a stereotypical villain. Neither is Andriana Fernandez’s portrayal of the role very convincing, well though she sings. She simply sounds too nice to be mouthing blood curdling threats, although the wide leaps and floated sequences of “Da quell ferro” (act I) are sung with such assurance that it is not difficult to forgive shortcomings of dramatic veracity. This, incidentally, is the one excerpt where we are given a direct opportunity for comparison with Corselli, whose setting, although consciously “bigger” and more fully scored, lacks the dramatic impact of the Vivaldi. It is also more self-consciously virtuosic for the sake of virtuosity. Fernandez is dramatically more at home in a beautifully sung “Quel candido fiore” (act III), in which she tries to convince the Roman consul Pompeo to kill the child, who has fallen into her hands, by means of insinuating simile. Berenice is now all guile and charm, and her deceptively light approach is well conveyed through some splendid singing.

Guile and charm are also qualities owned in abundance by Selinda, Farnace’s sister, but she uses them for the rather different purpose of manipulating her brother’s enemies, the Roman captain Gilade and the Roman prefect Aquilio. The scenes involving the three, either severally or together, are handled by Vivaldi with a delicious lightness of touch and humor often absent in opera seria. It would be difficult to imagine anything more beguiling than Selinda’s act I aria “Al vezzegiar,” the muted upper strings weaving a gossamer-light thread of sound over which Selinda enchantingly spins her womanly wiles. All three parts are exceptionally well sung, and if the delightful Cinzia Forte’s Gilade sounds more like a love-sick Cherubino than a Roman Captain, that is partly Vivaldi’s fault for giving her an aria like “C’è un dolce furore,” an irresistible flowing melody with little arabesque-like turns. The other pieces by Corselli consist of a three-movement overture, a bustling piece with horns, trumpets, and drums that brings to mind the Italian overture’s place in the development of the symphony, and another little march. With the two arias already mentioned, the Corselli pieces amount to about 25 minutes worth of music, enough to provide a flavor of his work, but not really sufficient to allow firm conclusions to be drawn regarding his score.

The playing of Savall’s Les Concert des Nations is full of warmth, fire, and affection. If it is not always as technically finished as it might be, it sets the seal on a splendid achievement featuring what is almost certainly overall the strongest, most satisfying cast yet assembled for a Vivaldi opera on record. As mentioned above, the presentation is lavish, with a 175-page hardcover booklet including translation into five languages, with insert pockets for the discs. The many color reproductions include photos of what was obviously a lavishly dressed production. It makes me feel somewhat churlish, therefore, to say that I found the notes on the two operas lacking in detail, and also to draw attention to a few slip-shod moments in the English libretto, such as that on p. 98, where the translator appears to think “Fanciullo” is the name of the child rather than a generic word. All that is, of course, irrelevant in the context of the wider picture, which is quite simply that this is a set that should on no account be missed by anyone with even the remotest interest in 18th-century opera.

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