Joyce DiDonato, a paradigm of painful impacts | Culture | EUROtoday

“Paradigm of painful feelings”. Con estas tres palabras resume el tratadista Athanasius Kircher, en Universal music (1650), the transferring cry of Jephte's daughter on the finish of Giacomo Carissimi's oratorio of the identical identify. We had been in a position to see it final Sunday, February 4, on the Teatro Real, listening to the gorgeous lament Cry gangs, unhappy mountains to the soprano Carlotta Colombo. But much more so, shortly after, with Joyce DiDonato singing the lament When I’m laid in earth which constitutes the climax of the opera Dido and Aeneasde Henry Purcell.

The American diva returned to the Madrid stage with Il Pomo d'Oro and directed by Maksim Emelianichev. But, on this event, outdoors of a conceptual recital linked to the promotion of a file launch. And she because the protagonist of a double program, in a live performance model, made up of two great compositions from the seventeenth century: an oratorio and an opera. A European tour that began on February 2, in London, and can finish on the sixteenth in Essen, after passing via the Palau de la Música in Valencia (tomorrow the sixth), the Parisian Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (on the eighth ), the Danish metropolis of Aalborg (tenth) and the Elphilharmonie in Hamburg (14th).

If there’s a distant hyperlink between Jephthah y Dido and Aeneas maybe it’s the usage of an amazing lament as a end result. For the remaining, they’re two compositions that now we have preserved virtually by probability, as there isn’t any print from the time or autograph linked to their creator. Neither are works straightforward so far neither is it attainable to know the exact circumstances of their premiere. The manuscripts that Carissimi donated to the Collegium Germanicum in Rome had been misplaced at first of the 18th century and his most well-known oratorio has come all the way down to us in a French copy from 1649. And though Purcell's solely opera was carried out, in 1689, at a women' boarding faculty of Chelsea, it’s attainable that it was composed prematurely for the English courtroom. In any case, it has reached us incomplete (the prologue and the top of the second act are lacking) and its earliest musical supply dates from the top of the 18th century.

Emelianichev preceded Carissimi's oratorio with a symphony unrelated to the work, because the composition begins instantly with the introduction narrated in recitative. Apart from the standard of the instrumental ensemble, the place a number of Spanish musicians stood out, such because the violinist Jesús Merino, the double bassist Ismael Campanero Nieto and the theorbist Miguel Rincón, the choir stood out. A vocal ensemble created by Il Pomo d'Oro, in 2021, made up of 18 singers, virtually all Italian and extensively skilled within the baroque repertoire (amongst its members is, for instance, the unforgettable soprano Rosanna Bertini).

Although the choir offered all of the oratorio's soloists, aside from the 2 leads, they had been extra spectacular as an entire. It was the case of Flee, give approach, depraved which sounded superb excited typeand the gorgeous six-part closing refrain, Weep, kids of Israelwith these expressive dissonances that Handel borrowed in his oratorio Samson. Among the soloists, tenor Andrew Staples was a stable and musical Jephte, though soprano Carlotta Colombo lifted her daughter's half increased. A luminous and agile voice that turned Plorate colles in the most effective of the oratory along with the choir that closes the work.

But the primary composition of this system was Purcell's opera, as was clear from the quilt of the meager hand program. Emelianichev opened with an incisive and frenetic overture that recalled the standard excessive and crunchy tone of his mentor Theodor Currentzis. From then on he discovered a great steadiness between verve and musicality, with admirable dealing with of the choirs and dances, regardless of the extreme prominence of Koen Plaetinck's percussion.

In the vocal part, DiDonato's look on stage overshadowed the remainder of the solid. In the primary act, the American diva exhibited a great dramatic tone as Dido with a creamy and agile center register that took benefit of the slight change in coloration of her bass. But it was within the third act the place we heard her finest moments, each in her bitter duet with Aeneas and within the well-known lament, which she sang with dedication and with out the slightest impact. It was the most effective of the evening together with the ultimate refrain With Drooping Wings You Cupids come.

The rising Egyptian soprano Fatma Said gave life to a lyrical and compelling Belinda. Columbo and Staples as soon as once more stood out, respectively, as Second Woman and as Aeneas. The British tenor solidly confronted a component extra designed for a lightweight baritone. And among the many secondary ones, spotlight the imposing look, within the second act, of the mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor as Witch and countertenor Hugh Cutting as Spirit. The Il Pomo d'Oro choir as soon as once more offered admirable soloists in Purcell, such because the witches sung by sopranos Alena Dantcheva and Anna Piroli, though it as soon as once more stood out as a gaggle, each within the cave scene with the witches within the second act and ultimately.

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