Monteverdi reviews

British tenor Paul Agnew tackles an operatic triathlon here, as soloist (in the roles of Eco and Apollo), and as both musical and stage director of this new production of L’Orfeo filmed at the Théâtre de Caen. His mise en scène paints a series of pastoral tableaux with apt simplicity – a welcome change from the anachronisms directors often impose on early opera (though the singers’ actions would have benefitted from a little more direction).

I Fagiolini isn’t the only group to have approached Monteverdi’s swansong collection of sacred music by way of an astutely assembled Vespers framework. Concerto Italiano’s 2014 delve into the 1641 Selva morale e spirituale fashioned a liturgy for the feast of St Mark. Robert Hollingworth, taking his cue from the ecstatic ear-witness report of a Dutch tourist in 1620 Venice, honours St John the Baptist with an adroitly chosen line-up.

The theatre of night, a beguiling setting for Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano’s disc of much-loved madrigals to commemorate Monteverdi’s 450-year anniversary. Of course, these maestri of madrigals recorded much of this repertoire to great acclaim some twenty or more years ago, but the cover of darkness provides an elegant context for fresh interpretations – with striking new takes on ornamentation and dissonance, pace and affect.

Berta Joncus

The raw excitement of this performance, made when Monteverdi was still a novelty, compensates for its flaws. Malgoire rightly makes his singers almost speak, and the band plays with abandon.

Berta Joncus

Monteverdi very tidily split his musical career into three style periods, each one related to a change of place – Cremona, Mantua and Venice. In this final volume of their series Les Arts Florissants cover his years in Venice (1613-43) with extracts from his late madrigal books.

Heralding the 450th birthday celebrations of Claudio Monteverdi in 2017, Leonardo Garcia Alarcon and Cappella Mediterranea’s dramatic recital disc explores the emotional gamut of Monteverdi’s imagination. An unashamedly clever programme, the seven deadly sins are countered by seven virtues, each ascribed madrigals (Books III, IV and VIII) or opera scenes (L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, L’incoronazione di Poppea). With tracks flowing one to another almost seamlessly, the pacing of the disc is excellent.

This compelling and insightful album is an outstanding contribution to Monteverdi’s 450th anniversary. John Butt makes no attempt to place the ‘work’ in the framework of a single church service, as the evidence now seems clear that the individual items of the published collection were composed over a number of years for varied liturgical contexts.