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    Appréciation d'ensemble / Overall evaluation : 
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Reviewer: Richard Wigmore 
    Invernizzi back 
    with Bonizzoni for multi-hued Vivaldi arias ‘A journey of love, fear, rage and despair’, proclaims Fabio Bonizzoni, with no hyperbole. Once or twice — say, in an aria from Orlando finto pazzo, complete with avian twitterings — we hear Vivaldi in amorous pastoral mode. Far more often these arias present their grieving or defiant heroes and heroines in extremis. Metaphorical ‘storm’ arias were a particular speciality of the highly strung, hyperactive Vivaldi. Roberta Invernizzi, perhaps the most exciting Italian Baroque soprano today, chooses three of the most flamboyant and dazzles with her coruscating yet perfectly controlled coloratura. In ‘Fra le procelle’ from Tito Manlio (an opera Vivaldi claimed to have whipped up in five days flat), she effortlessly negotiates the vertiginous shifts between registers, while in ‘Dopo un’orrida procella’, with in roistering homs, she matches Cecilia Bartoli’s vocal and verbal energy (on her Decca ‘Vivaldi Album’, 11/99) without recourse to Bartoli’s trademark cooing whispers and chesty gulps. La Risonanza, pounding, strumming continuo to the fore, match Invemizzi all the way in flair and theatrical intensity. 
While there is visceral excitement aplenty 
here, the best music, as so often in Vivaldi’s operas, comes in the more 
introspective numbers. With flutey top notes and an expressive, selective use of 
vibrato, Invernzzi poignantly conveys Caio’s mingled courage and anxiety in an 
aria from Ottone in villa. She entwines rapturously with solo violin as 
Lucio pleads for pity in Tito Manlio, and finds a blanched, traumatised 
tone for Costanza’s entreaty to the shades in Griselda. She can be blithe 
too, cajoling her way through reams of skittering triplets in a delightful 
minuet aria from Giustino. Most memorable of all, perhaps, is 
Invernizzi’s grace and lulling tenderness in an aria from Catone in 
Utica, cushioned by the exquisite — and exquisitely realised — sonority of 
muted violins and pizzicato violas. In sum, another winner for La Risonanza and 
a triumph for Invernizzi.   | 
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