DREAMS & FABLES.(Review)

Cecilia Bartoli [] "DREAMS & FABLES" Italian arias by Gluck. Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin. Texts and translations. Decca 467 248-2

Gluck's operas, his Italian ones in particular, have not yet had the consistent modern revivals that Handel's have enjoyed. With any luck, this disc by Cecilia Bartoli -- a glimpse of a wealth of exquisite music that offers heaven-sent opportunities for singing actors -- will be the first step on the road to staged productions.

The texts of all six operas represented here are by Pietro Metastasio, whose librettos inspired literally hundreds of opera settings (sometimes as many as forty of a single work). Of particular interest here are consecutive arias for Sesto and Vitellia that comprise the Act II finale of Gluck's version of La Clemenza di Tito. This is the moment just after Sesto has surrendered his sword to Publio. His address to Vitellia, "Se mai senti spirarti sul volto," has a rarefied, cleansed beauty, expressive wide leaps and a gorgeous oboe solo. In its day it was one of Gluck's most famous arias, and he reworked it for Iphigenie en Tauride ("O malheureuse Iphigenie"). It's the sort of piece that can become static in performance, but here Bartoli and the conductorless Berlin players keep the line unbroken, and the piece emerges timeless.

This is followed by Vitellia's "Tremo fra' dubbi miei" (with its Handelian trumpets, it makes a good curtain-raiser and is aptly heard first on this recording), in which Bartoli offers one of her finest recorded performances. Here, using her customary close identification with the text, volleys of coloratura and a cadenza that is a true climax, she not only manages the aria technically but builds a deeply characterized performance. Mozart and Mazzola set this section as a trio for Vitellia, Sesto and Publio, the type of invention that sent opera off in a new direction for a century. But Gluck's earlier setting bears comparison -- no small praise. The two composers also came head to head in "Misera, dove son," and here Gluck's music shows that Mozart's Don Giovanni did not spring fully formed out of thin air.

...