Handel - Amadigi di Gaula
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Composer: George Frideric HandelConductor: Eduardo Lopez Banzo
Orchestra: Al Ayre Espanol
Performer: Maria Riccarda Wesseling
Performer: Elena de la Merced
Performer: Sharon Rostorf-Zamir
Performer: Jordi Domenech
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2008-02-26
Music Label: ambroisie (naive)
Free Music Notes for Handel - Amadigi di Gaula
Free Music Review: Excellent New Version of One of Handel's Most Beautiful Operas
Hit: 5 Stars
Amadigi di Gaula (1715) was the fifth Italian opera that Handel wrote for London, and the last before he took up his duties for the newly formed Royal Academy. Like Rinaldo and Teseo, which preceded it, Amadigi is a "magic opera", a genre that always brought out the best in the composer; like them too it features a love-sick sorceress as a central figure, a character-type he was to return to with equally memorable results in Alcina (1735). (His remaining "magic opera" Orlando has a benevolent male sorceror in place of a malevolent female one.)
Amadigi is an absolutely wonderful piece, with a memorable score of great freshness, invention and youthful vitality - not a single weak number. There are two duets, an onstage death scene (very rare) and a ghost scene, all outstanding. Altho' there are a few puzzling moments in the plot (due to the libretto's compression from a 5-act French original), the story and conflicts are clear and the characters well-drawn. And with essentially only 4 characters and at 2 1/2 hours in length, it's one of Handel's most concise and intimate stage works.
This new recording, only the second so far, is excellent, and certainly fully equal in quality to Marc Minkowski's fine 1989 version (Erato). Perhaps the new one has a slight edge in sheer theatrical excitement, but the difference is marginal. Unlike Minkowski, conductor Eduardo Lopez Banzo has cast a countertenor (rather than a woman) as Dardanus, and this may matter to some listeners. (The role was originally sung by a woman, tho' a castrato took over later.) I should also note that on the new recording one aria, Oriana's sublime Siciliana "Gioie, venite in sen" loses its da capo (no doubt to fit the piece on 2 CDs - Banzo's overall timings run slightly longer than Minkowski's) and Melissa's "Io godo, scherzo e rido" is heard in a different setting from Minkowski's: similar in length and tone, but in duple rather than triple time. There is a good new English translation of the Italian text - Erato reprinted the Italian-English libretto from the 1715 premiere - as well as French and Spanish versions. Excellent sound. A fine achievement all round, strongly recommended.
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