Nicholas McGegan - Handel: Giustino (1995)
BAND/ARTIST: Nicholas McGegan
- Title: Handel: Giustino
- Year Of Release: 1995
- Label: Harmonia Mundi
- Genre: Classical
- Quality: FLAC (image + .cue, log, scans)
- Total Time: 3:47:35
- Total Size: 1.07 GB
- WebSite: Album Preview
Giustino, none too successful in Handel's own day, has had an unjustifiably poor press from Handel biographers. Taken on its own terms – which are considerably removed from those of traditional heroic opera seria – it strikes me as a thoroughly delightful work: consistent in style but very varied in manner, run through with lively touches of wit and irony, and at its best moments serious and genuinely moving. First given in 1737, and not revived in Handel's time (indeed not until 1967), it tells a tale based very loosely on history, about the early days of Justin, the country lad who became Byzantine emperor. The shifts of allegiance and the slender motivation sometimes make it hard to be sure where our sympathies are meant to lie, but the story clearly isn't intended to be taken over-seriously. The work happens to be particularly well suited to Nicholas McGegan's interpretative approach: the light textures, the faintly quizzical, abrupt phrase-ends, the quickish tempos, the crisp rhythms and the general reluctance to dawdle or luxuriate or aggrandize – all these seem to capture the special qualities of Giustino very neatly and make the set highly agreeable entertainment.
The opera has an unusual overture, virtually an oboe concerto, with long and virtuoso oboe solos in the fugue and a solo Adagio to follow: it is outstandingly well played here by Katharina Arfken, under McGegan's spruce direction. The singing, by the cast McGegan conducted at the Gottingen Festival in 1994, is stylish and assured though vocally not consistently distinguished. It is slightly regrettable, in a recording, that the voices of the royal couple, Anastasio and Arianna, should sound rather alike. Anastasio was originally a soprano castrato role (it was written for the famous Conti); Dawn Kotoski has the right firmness of focus and concentration of tone, with considerable delicacy and rhythmic life, but the narrow, quick vibrato sometimes makes the intonation seem a shade suspect. The Arianna, Dorothea Roschmann, is also a light and quite graceful singer, firm in line. She distinguishes herself, and raises the level of intensity of the whole performance, with her singing of the last aria of Act 1, a highly chromatic D minor aria of considerable pathos, and her big virtuoso piece, a triumphant D major duet with the oboe at the end of Act 2, is equally splendid in quite a different way. Her first Act 3 aria, a very individual F minor expression of grief and the emotional high point of the opera, is also quite outstanding.
The other castrato role is Giustino's, superbly sung here by Michael Chance. Handel characteristically introduced his singer with a light and simple piece, a minuet accompanied only by three recorders, oboe and viola; it is followed by a C minor 'sleep song'. Chance does the first charmingly, the second very expressively with many subtle details of timing and shading. He has an unusually generous allocation of arias; I cannot mention them all but must refer to the finely virile and agile singing of ''Se parla nel mio cor'' later in Act 1, the noble ''Sull' altar'' in Act 2 (perhaps best of all) and the shapely performance of his first Act 3 aria. The steady and beautiful tone and controlled singing should subdue the objections that many people feel to countertenors in castrato roles. In that context I should add that it seems to me misguided to use a countertenor where another option is offered, or indeed chosen, by the composer: the role of Amanzio, originally taken by a contralto, is here assigned to Drew Minter – a very musical and intelligent singer but I have to say that the voice seems soft-edged and does not come over with much life or definition, so that the character, scheming and villainous, is not very effectively conveyed. Jennifer Lane makes a strong and precise Leocasta and Mark Padmore shows plenty of vitality as Vitaliano.
Recitatives are briskly done, as they should be. There is a good deal of ornamentation in the da capo sections, occasionally too like rewriting for my taste. McGegan characterizes the orchestral slurring and staccatos very markedly, often without evident justification in the text; it sounds well enough but sometimes it represents editorial decisions that are not easy to understand. Still, it does bring life to the music and that is what matters most. He also tends to stress the top and bottom of the texture and keep the middle (whether strings or continuo filling) very light. The set is well presented, with a useful note by Duncan Chisholm though there is neither a synopsis nor a list of the original cast. Handelians must not miss this latest addition to the recorded repertory of the operas.' -- Stanley Sadie, Gramophone
The opera has an unusual overture, virtually an oboe concerto, with long and virtuoso oboe solos in the fugue and a solo Adagio to follow: it is outstandingly well played here by Katharina Arfken, under McGegan's spruce direction. The singing, by the cast McGegan conducted at the Gottingen Festival in 1994, is stylish and assured though vocally not consistently distinguished. It is slightly regrettable, in a recording, that the voices of the royal couple, Anastasio and Arianna, should sound rather alike. Anastasio was originally a soprano castrato role (it was written for the famous Conti); Dawn Kotoski has the right firmness of focus and concentration of tone, with considerable delicacy and rhythmic life, but the narrow, quick vibrato sometimes makes the intonation seem a shade suspect. The Arianna, Dorothea Roschmann, is also a light and quite graceful singer, firm in line. She distinguishes herself, and raises the level of intensity of the whole performance, with her singing of the last aria of Act 1, a highly chromatic D minor aria of considerable pathos, and her big virtuoso piece, a triumphant D major duet with the oboe at the end of Act 2, is equally splendid in quite a different way. Her first Act 3 aria, a very individual F minor expression of grief and the emotional high point of the opera, is also quite outstanding.
The other castrato role is Giustino's, superbly sung here by Michael Chance. Handel characteristically introduced his singer with a light and simple piece, a minuet accompanied only by three recorders, oboe and viola; it is followed by a C minor 'sleep song'. Chance does the first charmingly, the second very expressively with many subtle details of timing and shading. He has an unusually generous allocation of arias; I cannot mention them all but must refer to the finely virile and agile singing of ''Se parla nel mio cor'' later in Act 1, the noble ''Sull' altar'' in Act 2 (perhaps best of all) and the shapely performance of his first Act 3 aria. The steady and beautiful tone and controlled singing should subdue the objections that many people feel to countertenors in castrato roles. In that context I should add that it seems to me misguided to use a countertenor where another option is offered, or indeed chosen, by the composer: the role of Amanzio, originally taken by a contralto, is here assigned to Drew Minter – a very musical and intelligent singer but I have to say that the voice seems soft-edged and does not come over with much life or definition, so that the character, scheming and villainous, is not very effectively conveyed. Jennifer Lane makes a strong and precise Leocasta and Mark Padmore shows plenty of vitality as Vitaliano.
Recitatives are briskly done, as they should be. There is a good deal of ornamentation in the da capo sections, occasionally too like rewriting for my taste. McGegan characterizes the orchestral slurring and staccatos very markedly, often without evident justification in the text; it sounds well enough but sometimes it represents editorial decisions that are not easy to understand. Still, it does bring life to the music and that is what matters most. He also tends to stress the top and bottom of the texture and keep the middle (whether strings or continuo filling) very light. The set is well presented, with a useful note by Duncan Chisholm though there is neither a synopsis nor a list of the original cast. Handelians must not miss this latest addition to the recorded repertory of the operas.' -- Stanley Sadie, Gramophone
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