Handel: Imeneo (complete opera)

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GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
Handel: Imeneo (complete opera)
Ann Hallenberg, Magnus Staveland, Monica Piccinini, Fabrizio Beggi / Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi

[ Glossa / 2 CD ]

Release Date: Wednesday 18 May 2016

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Fabio Biondi signs his fifth release for Glossa with a vital interpretation of Handel's late opera 'Imeneo', given in its 1742 Dublin version. If, by this date, the London public was tiring of the Italian opera in which Handel had been excelling for decades, he was still able to call upon divos and divas of the quality of La Francesina and Giovanni Battista Andreoni to perform his music.

Though not a success in its Lincoln's Inn Fields staging in London, 'Imeneo' was directed by Handel as his only Italian work during his season in Dublin (which also saw the first performance of 'Messiah'), complete with additional arias to add to those praised in 1740 and a pruning of the libretto (which hadn't received approval). The revised story turns on Tirinto (Ann Hallenberg in Biondi's modern-day production, as performed at the Handel Festival in Halle) pining for his beloved and kidnapped Rosmene (Monica Piccinini). Her liberation by Imeneo (Magnus Staveland) leads to Rosmene being required to decide which of the two Athenians to wed. 'Hymen' - as Handel's work was known in Dublin - was the god of marriage, and so, will love overcome duty and reason or not? Fabio Biondi, directing from the violin, brings all his experience in both Italian music and music from the 18th century in delivering a stunning vindication of an unfairly neglected Handel opera..

"Biondi leads a cast and performance from Europa Galante that is graceful and frequently characterised by what might be identified as an Italianate sensibility. At times this bristles with Vivaldian vigour (as in the Overture) or exudes a more delicate charm particularly in the embellishments which Biondi provides in his direction from the solo violin." (MusicWeb April 2016)

"The orchestra has the odd rough edge, but it fizzes in Imeneo's jealousy aria, sung with authority by the tenor Magnus Staveland. However, the recording belongs to mezzo Ann Hallenberg as Tirinto; she is in quite another league to the rest of the cast, and the performances lifts whenever she is singing." (Guardian)

"Europa Galante perform the Overture's playful Allegro expertly...Biondi's accomplished performance permits a valuable insight into Handel's pragmatism and reconstructs a historic event...Hallenberg [is] on top form." (Gramophone)

"Biondi shapes a performance in which the depth of preparation results in music-making that sounds entirely spontaneous. There's a startling variety of articulation and colour from his tiny band, and beautifully responsive continuo playing. Ann Hallenberg delivers Tirinto's grave serenades and intricate passagework with unruffled ease and an alluring mellow tone…[and] Magnus Staveland conveys louche glamour in the swashbuckling title role." (BBC Music)

View the trailer (via YouTube)