Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Vivaldi: Il Farnace

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

We commonly think of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) as the violin virtuoso who composed "The Four Seasons" concertos and so many other instrumental works. In actuality, "The Red Priest" was primarily a composer of opera. At least twenty of his operas survive in more-or-less complete score, and among his manuscripts, preserved in the Italian National Library in Turin, are large fragments of others, totaling perhaps forty nine lyric stageworks.

Among the piles of manuscripts in Turin's Vivaldi archive is the autograph of Farnace (1727), regarded as Vivaldi's personal favorite. Vivaldi meticulously reworked his music for Farnace at least six times for productions in various cities. Copies of this opera exist in Madrid and elsewhere in Europe. Farnace was a hit wherever it was performed. One of its arias contains a theme from the "Winter" concerto of "The Four Seasons."

Earlier in the twenty-first century the French label Naïve/Opus 111 drew upon the Turin manuscript collection for a series of recordings of the Vivaldi operas. I broadcast as many of those recordings as we received into our station's record library. Farnace I presented on Sunday, June 20, 2010. This was the 1731 Pavia revision of the opera, with Jordi Savall directing Le Concert des Nations period instrumental ensemble.

The 1738 Ferrara version has been recently recorded for the Italian Dynamic label. Dynamic gives the title of the opera with the definite article as Il Farnace. The dramma per musica was staged in May, 2013 at the Teatro Communale of Florence. A specialist in baroque opera, Federico Sardelli conducted the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, who play on modern instruments, but employ historically informed performance practice. The singers are accomplished in baroque vocalization technique. Mezzo Mary Ellen Nesi took on the title role, which was originally meant for a male castrato. She portrays Pharnaces, the king of Pontus in Asia Minor, who defied Roman domination and was defeated by Pompey in battle. Dynamic released Il Farnace on two compact discs in 2015.