A decade ago, new recordings of the earliest of all operatic masterpieces seemed almost commonplace, but this studio recording of Monteverdi’s favola in musica is the first to appear for more than three years. What marks this L’Orfeo out from previous versions, though, is that the tenor Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, previously known for his Handel recordings and who takes the role of Orfeo here, is also the conductor, and has clearly been the guiding hand behind the whole project.
His dual role is, I think, a qualified success. In an essay in the liner notes, Toro explains the thinking behind his interpretation, in which he relates the tempo for every number to the speed he chooses for Orfeo’s great third-act aria Possente Spirto, about which the whole drama pivots, and insists that all ornamentation of the vocal lines is kept strictly in time. That perhaps explains some of the extremes: the first act is taken so fast some of it hardly registers, while Possente Spirto itself begins at a funereal pace, and those ornaments that Toro makes so much of sometimes seem rather self-consciously articulated.
His singing won’t necessarily be to all tastes either. His range of expressive colour is certainly wide, but Toro has a tendency to make some phrases seem just a bit too smooth and glib. Alongside him there’s a sparky Messenger from Natalie Pérez, but Emőke Baráth’s Euridice (La Musica in the prologue) is less convincing, and the bass Jérôme Varnier makes a surprisingly light-toned Caronte. Instrumentally, though, the score is very finely played by the 31 instrumentalists of I Gemelli; their continuo group includes a real curiosity – a modern facsimile of a ceterone, a plucked instrument close to a chitarrone, which is virtually forgotten today but which Monteverdi specified in the Orfeo score.
This week’s other pick
There’s another new Monteverdi release from the resurgent Naïve label, but in what might described as a more mainstream, historically informed performance. The Third Book of Madrigals continues a series stretching back almost two decades from Concerto Italiano and their director Rinaldo Alessandrini. What has always marked out the Monteverdi performances from this native Italian group of singers has been the naturally expressive way they give full value to every particle of every text, while Alessandrini’s shaping of each number is equally unforced and unaffected, and doesn’t need any written explanation of why it sounds so convincing.
