Monteverdi L’Orfeo Marc Mauillon, Luciana Mancini, Sara Mingardo, Furio Zanasi, Marianne Beate Kielland, Salvo Vitale, Victor Sordo, Gabriel Diaz, Alessandro Giangrande, Yannis François; La Capella Reial de Catalunya; Le Concert des Nations/Jordi Savall Château de Versailles CVS080 109:06 mins (2 discs)
This is Jordi Savall’s second recording of L’Orfeo, the first being a live performance from 2002 issued on Alia Vox, and then on DVD (BBC/Opus Arte). Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo is not an easy work to bring off. Most of the jolly music is in the opening act and the characters have acres of recitative to communicate.
Both of Savall’s recordings take a rather poised, ‘arcadian’ approach, and so much rests on the performers to provide fluency and narrative drive. In fact this is a strong vocal cast, with two actually surviving from the original recording – Furio Zanasi (was Orfeo and is now Apollo), and the darkly dramatic Sara Mingardo (the Messenger on both occasions). The new Orfeo, Marc Mauillon, is absolutely superb in the title role. The fiendish central aria ‘Possente spirto’ is rendered with impressive formal command, then the anxiety that he may not rescue Euridice (‘Ah sventurato amante’) finds the singer practically dragging the lugubrious accompaniment behind him.
Jordi Savall does not always direct the orchestra with nuance and balance; for example, in Act I the instrumental ritornello before ‘Alcun non sia’, should represent a stately procession to the temple, not some kind of languid saunter, and the instrumental bass line is sometimes a little too loud and ‘spongy’ (‘Vi ricordi’, Act II). That said, this is an appealing performance even if it lacks the exciting if hectic interpretation of Emmanuelle Haïm (Virgin 2004), and the clarity and consistency of John Eliot Gardiner’s acclaimed version (on Archiv, 1988).
Anthony Pryer