Vivaldi: Catone in Utica.(Sound Recording Review)

[] Faraon, Cangemi, Bertini; Edwards, Laszczkowski, Jaroussky; La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy, Malgoire. Text and translations. Dynamic CDS 403/1-2 (Qualiton, dist.)

Vivaldi gave his all to Catone in Utica, a gruesome tale of treachery and honor set in Caesarean Rome, composed in 1737 to Pietro Metastasio's second version of a libretto also set by Hasse, Leo and J. C. Bach. Vivaldi's characterizations are taut and vivid, with a succession of richly scored arias and pungent recitatives. One understands why the piece was a great success in its time.

Unfortunately, as with more than two-thirds of Vivaldi's opera scores, Catone in Utica is incomplete, lacking the music for Act I. The long-active and respected early-music conductor Jean-Claude Malgoire has done an immense service by writing recitatives on Vivaldi's models and culling arias from Vivaldi's other operas to supply the music for Act I of Catone. All of his choices are compelling musically, though Metastasio's texts often sit crudely in their new surroundings. Still, this is a terrific labor, and one hopes Malgoire will pursue other such ventures, perhaps fixing the text problems in this one while he's at it.

One has only to listen to Act II of Catone in Utica to appreciate how stirring Vivaldi found his subject. In a sequence of seven arias, Vivaldi evokes colorful representations of the text: paired oboes and strings and a winding melody to describe the plaints of the sheep for an absent shepherd; recorders and strings to describe the gentle breezes of love; agitated string crossings to paint the exit of a shade from the Elysian fields; and a giant military band of horns and trumpets with vocal trumpetings for Caesar's "campo armato." The sequence is thrilling and culminates in a bravura coloratura aria for the wrathful ...