FROM AROUND THE WORLD: MONTPELLIER, FRANCE.(Review)

Baroque opera has flourished at Montpellier Opera during Henry Maier's sixteen years as general director. He leaves after the current season for the opera in Leipzig but departs true to form, with a genuine rarity, Tommaso Traetta's Ippolito ed Aricia (1759), a co-production with the Valle d'Itria Festival, Martina Franca. This is a work of distinct historical importance, born of the idea that Italian opera, with its string of da capo arias, was missing something. The music itself drew few complaints, but many among the cognoscenti envied the choruses, ballets and scenic effects of French opera.

Ippolito, composed for Parma in 1759, tries for the best of both worlds. Based on Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, it incorporates unchanged many of that opera's dances and likewise has numerous choruses. But the arias are full-blown expressions of Italian lyricism. Ippolito helped pave the way for Gluck's more radical Oreo ed Euridice three years later, and Mozart eventually felt the repercussions with Idomeneo. The score's many Mozartean gestures remind one that Traetta was not really a Baroque composer but a Classicist, and the mix of his music with Rameau's dances is highly appealing. But the amalgamation of national styles made for a long opera. When it was given in Martina Franca in 1999, there were more than four hours of music. About an hour was dropped in Montpellier, with just enough recitative remaining ...