Fux La Corona d’Arianna Carlotta Colombo; Marianne Beate Kielland et al; Arnold Schoenberg Choir; Zefiro/Alfredo Bernardini Arcana A548 68:15 mins
Johann Joseph Fux’s La Corona d’Arianna is wonderful in this version by director Alfredo Bernardini, who drastically shortened the opera due to 2022 Covid measures. He chose the very best arias to range alongside the composer’s stonking overture and choruses.
Written in 1726, La Corona d’Arianna honoured Holy Roman Empress Elisabeth Christine. In the action, Venus (‘Venere’), proxy for the Empress, engineers the marriages both of Ariadne (‘Arianna’) and Bacchus (‘Bacco’), and of Thetis (‘Teti’) and Peleus. Soprano Monica Piccinini as Venere dominates the opera’s first part, triumphing in the climactic ‘Spera, e taci’, for which she lets fly ever-higher embellishments. Interlaced with her arias are lush vocal ensembles, exuberantly sung by a reduced Arnold Schoenberg Choir. In the opera’s final two sections, countertenor Rafał Tomkiewicz brings a sexy swagger to Bacco, most audibly in his duet with Arianna and a final aria boasting of his powers.
Alto Marianne Beate Kielland’s dark hues and brooding seriousness define Teti, and foregrounds Fux’s gift for vocal characterisation in her siciliano finale.
The stand-out principal is Carlotta Colombo. She conveys Arianna’s growing sensuality, a transformation culminating in ‘II tuo cor dimanda al mio’ with its three-way echo sung first by Colombo, then by an off-stage soprano, then again by Colombo, whose final whispered repeat enacts Arianna’s yielding to desire.
The band’s playing is joyous, even raucous, as Bernardini gives players space to relish Fux’s superb scoring. Treat yourself to this immersive Baroque experience.
Berta Joncus
