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Handel - Amadigi di Gaula - Opera in 3 Acts (+Book)
 
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Handel - Amadigi di Gaula - Opera in 3 Acts (+Book)

~ Pat Bordas (Bass), George Frederick Handel (Composer), Eduardo Lopez Banzo (Conductor), Jordi Domenech (Counter Tenor), Maria Riccarda Wesseling (Mezzo Soprano), et al.
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Orchestra: Al Ayre Espanol
  • Conductor: Eduardo Lopez Banzo
  • Composer: George Frederick Handel
  • Audio CD (4 Feb 2008)
  • SPARS Code: DDD
  • Number of Discs: 2
  • Label: Ambroisie / Naive
  • ASIN: B000WHBTBU
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 122,241 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Product Description

Album Description

'Amadigi di Gaula' was inspired by a text written by the French writer Antoine Houdar de la Motte entitled "Amadis de Grèce". Destouches had already composed music around this text sixteen years before Handel. It was the composer's fifth London opera and received its first performance in London at the Haymarket Theatre on 25 May 1715. The original cast included the celebrated castrato Nicolo Grimaldi. It was a great success and received a known minimum of 17 further performances in London through 1717, and a similar number in Hamburg from 1717-1720, with a different title, 'Oriana'. It then fell into neglect until a revival performance in 1968 at the Abbey Hall, Abingdon, by the English based "Unicorn Opera Group".

Although the plot of 'Amadigi di Gaula' is convoluted, it has at its centre a fairly simple premise. Amagigi, "a famous hero", and Dardano, Prince of Thrace, are rivals for the love of Oriana, daughter of the King of the Fortune Islands. Oriana is in love with Amadigi, as is the sorceress Melissa who throughout the opera tries to captivate him with potions and spells. Needless to say after various twists, true love conquers all and Amadigi and Oriana end up in each others arms.

Eduardo Lopez Banzo second album for Ambroise, featuring another of Handel's operas "Rodrigo", will be released later in the year.

Personnel:
Al Ayre Espanol Orquestra, Eduardo López Banzo - (harpsichord and conductor), Maria Riccarda Wesseling, Elena de la Merced, Sharon Rostorf Zamir, Jordi Domenech

Soloists:
Maria Riccarda Wesseling (Amadigi), Elenade la Merced (Oriane), Sharon Rostorf Zamir (Melisse & Orgando), Jordi Domenech (Dardanus)

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars As bad as Gramophone magazine says?, 9 Jul 2008
Amadigi di Gaula is a magnificent opera. The musical quality is remarkably high throughout and it is perhaps only the tiny cast, with all the dramatic limitations that this entails, that has restricted its wider public appeal.

This second recording of Amadigi has seemingly had a poor press. Gramophone gives one of the harshest reviews I can recall reading in the magazine and the excellent NewOlde.com website also criticises it.

I have to pin my colours to the mast from the outset and say I like it.

Mark Minkowski's excellent set on Erato was always going to be difficult to match, let alone beat. Brilliantly sung and played, with a thrilling sense of pace and superb recorded sound, Eduardo Lopez Banzo and his team of relative unknowns were always going to struggle to compete. But compete they do.

The cast is not quite up to Minkowski's standards but is perfectly good. Maria Riccarda Wesseling as Amadigi has an attractive vocal tone which reminds me slightly of Della Jones, albeit with less edge to the voice. Sharon Rostorf-Zamir sings Melissa with no shortage of passion and I found her to be convincing as the lovelorn sorceress. The other two singers in this thinly-cast work are also good.

The orchestral sound has been derided by some as being abrasive, but either my hearing is going or I am not hearing what others hear - I cannot detect any real problem here.

The direction of Banzo is compelling. What I like about this set is that it sounds more like a performance than a recording. Alan Curtis's careful (albeit polished) account of Tolomeo sounds rather tame by comparison. Readers may beg to differ, but I prefer a passionate, exciting account and I think we get that here.

His pacing of the recitatives is appropriately dramatic. Tempi in the fast music are often rather hectic and some listeners may prefer a less hurried approach. That said, Minkowski takes a very similar approach. Banzo takes an appropriately measured view of the slow music and I think the results work very well.

There are some negatives. Cutting the da capo section of Orianna's exquisite aria "Gioie, venite in sen" is a poor decision. The playing time of the CD suggests they ran out of room on the disc but it still smacks of penny-pinching.

The openings of the A sections of "Tu mia speranza" constitute another miscalculation. This aria has a lovely drone-bass but Banzo's decision here is quite odd. The opening note sounds like the orchestra is tuning up and the following notes gradually accelerate until the aria's full speed is reached - very strange!

In addition, the closing cadenza of "Destero dall'empia dite" is also disconcerting. Baroque practice was to sing these in one breath but here we are `treated' to a rather florid vocal duet between singer and trumpet.

That aside, you will have gathered that I really like this set. It may lack a last degree of finesse and the sound quality isn't ideal, but I disagree with those who suggest it misses the essential humanity of Handel's score. Banzo and colleagues give this opera a really good shot and it is only the sheer brilliance of Minkowski's set that gives it the edge in all respects and his has to be the preferred choice overall, given a straight choice between the two sets.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly recommended!, 3 May 2009
I would also like to distance myself from David Vicker's lamentable Gramophone review.

However, I don't think we should pay too much attention to a critic who, on his own admission, seems to prefer reading manuscripts to actually listening to music and who remains dissatisfied with both available versions of this opera.

Those of us fortunate enough not to share his obsessional fixation on an idiosyncratic perception of musical purity can wallow in this marvelous interpretation of Handel's Amadigi di Gaula by Al Ayre Español directed by López Banzo.

A real delight which offers a vibrancy rarely achieved in recordings of Handel's operatic opus.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent opera and a very enjoyable interpretation., 3 Feb 2009
By E. J. Powell "e j powell" (wales) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
The Review below says it all: I do not need to repeat the points made. Just to confirm, however, that Handel's music is of a high standard of inspiration - there's nothing routine here - and it is worth getting this recording, even if you already have the Minkowski. Why? Because this performance is pure drama: it has characters you care about, who face situations and change and adapt as the story unfolds. In short, this is opera. And, in these respects, I would place it above Minkowski, which has wonderful standards of musicianship, possibly better voices and real panache. But these performers (new to me) have truly got to the heart of the matter. You can smell the drama in the performance. There are some heart stopping arias which allow me to understand just why contemporary audiences went crazy for handel. I really enjoyed this recording and it has become one of my most cherished of of performances in an opera which deserves better recognition.
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