Nathalie Stutzmann and Orfeo 55 - Contralto (2021) [CD-Rip]

Nathalie Stutzmann's Contralto is one of those albums where everything seems to go wrong until you realize that it's actually going very right. Conducting an ensemble and singing with it at the same time is just not done because it's well-nigh impossible, but Stutzmann makes her Orfeo 55 ensemble into an extension of herself. Stutzmann's interpretations are personal, which is not supposed to be part of the early music ethos, though she seems to put something of herself into every aria. With readings as subjective as this, an artist should choose familiar repertory. However, Stutzmann includes several world premieres (check out the rather stark "Caro addio," from Bononcini's Griselda), and there's not a chestnut in the bunch. On a vocal recital, the audience, one is assured, wants to hear the singer, and Stutzmann departs from the vocal program with a large amount of instrumental music. In a word, Stutzmann is extreme, and it works because that's Baroque opera, and the larger-than-life heroines here come to life as they do on few other recordings. Vivaldi, whom Stutzmann loves and is perhaps the composer who fires her imagination the most, is well represented in arias that are not at all in general circulation. The sound, too, puts the audience face-to-face with the singer and musicians, something that usually annoys, yet here compels. Many listeners will want this album because it is apparently Stutzmann's swan song with Orfeo 55, which has disbanded, but it can really be recommended to anyone wanting a taste of what Baroque opera is about. ~ James Manheim