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Reviewer: Simon Rees
The Swedish mezzo soprano Ann Hallenberg’s recording of arias written for Farinelli in both the ‘bravura’ and the ‘pathetic’ styles is another stage in the continuing rediscovery – or reinvention – of the legendary castrato. Farinelli’s older brother Riccardo Broschi was one of the first composers to write for him, and this CD (recorded at a concert in a cough-ridden Bergen Hall in 2011) opens with arias from his operas Artaserse and Idaspe.
The most dramatic showpieces in this recording are ‘Si pietoso il tuo labro’ from Semiramide riconosciuta and the beautiful, slow-moving aria ‘Alto Giove’ from Polifemo, two operas by Farinelli’s teacher Nicola Porpora, who understood his pupil’s developing voice better than any. These pieces preserve a reflection of Farinelli’s legendary musical duels with instrumentalists playing obbligatos of rival thrilling virtuosity. Hallenberg’s mezzo voice extends well up into the soprano register, allowing her to execute the prodigious vocal leaps for which Farinelli was famous, while her scale passages are cleanly articulated and her trill is soundly focused. The concert is divided by Hasse’s overture to Cleofide, the second half including two arias from Leonardo Leo’s Catone in Utica (which from the evidence of this recording is worth further exploration) as well as the well-known Handelian ‘Sta nell’Ircana from Alcina and the deeply emotional tear-jerker ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Rinaldo.
The CD ends with a prestissimo reading of Porpora’s ‘In braccio a mille furie’, from Semiramide riconosciuta, in which even Hallenberg starts to sound a little out of breath, perhaps the one track in which Christophe Rousset’s judgement goes awry, but remains exhilarating all the same.
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