Raffaella Milanesi, La Risonanza & Fabio Bonizzoni
Release Date: 18 November 2016
Label: Challenge Classics
Packaging Type: Super Jewel Case (SACD)
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 608917273724
Description
Fabio Bonizzoni, one of Baroque music performance leading conductors of our time, and his group La Risonanza make their debut on Challenge Classics with Dido and Aeneas, Purcell's operatic masterpiece. It is coupled with The Love of Mars and Venus by John Eccles and Gottfried Finger, Purcell's near contemporaries.
Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, composed in the 1680s, is arguably the most beloved and best-known opera in English. Bonizzoni says: "The charm of this opera is in that it contains everything, like Cervantes' Don Quixote: any life experience is within it. Love, hate, death, dream, despair, the innocent and the wicked play. Purcell's awareness in portraying such opposite feelings is amazing." La Risonanza and Fabio Bonizzoni offer us here a version of Dido and Aeneas that provides a sense of how Purcell's famous work may first have been heard by London theatre-goers in 1704. Italian soprano Raffaella Milanesi and Austrian baritone Richard Helm take the title roles.
Mars and Venus was composed by Purcell's near contemporaries, John Eccles and Godfrey Finger, to a text by Peter Anthony Motteux. The songs were published in 1697 and the play text, providing a clear guide to exactly what was performed, in 1696. With these sources, Bonizzoni has reconstructed the Prologue of Mars and Venus by using the published songs, instrumental music by Finger or Eccles from other works, adapting where necessary.
One of the leading Italian harpsichordists and organists of his generation, Fabio Bonizzoni studied with Ton Koopman at the Royal Conservatorium in The Hague. After playing for several years with Amsterdam Baroque, Le Concert des Nations and Europa Galante, since 2004 he has exclusively been a soloist and director, in particular of his own orchestra La Risonanza. He's also harpsichord professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and in Italy at the Conservatory of Novara. With La Risonanza he completed the award-winning recording of all of Handel's Italian Cantatas with instruments in 2010.
Cast: Raffaella Milanesi (Dido), Richard Helm (Aeneas), Stefanie True (Belinda), Iason Marmaras (Sorceress), Michela Antenucci (First witch & Sailor), Anna Bessi (Second witch & Spirit)
Personnel: La Risonanza, Coro Constanzo Porta, Fabio Bonizzoni (conductor)
Tracklisting
Narratio Quartet
Piano Duo Scholtes & Janssens
Matteo Cicchitti, Musica Elegentia
Cappella Pratensis, Stratton Bull, Sollazzo Ensemble
La Sfera Armoniosa, Oscar Verhaar, Mike Fentross
Simona Marchesi, Bartolomeo Dandolo Marchesi
Ben Kim, Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra
Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Jan Willem de Vriend
Maria Callas
Soloists; Eroica Berlin; Jakob Lehmann
Luigi De Donato; Collegium 1704; Vaclav Luks
Anna Moffo; Cesare Valletti; Fernando Corena; Erich Leinsdorf
Soloists; Orchestre classique de Montreal; Alain Trudel
Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi, Natalia Rubis, Pawel Konik, Krzysztof Baczyk, Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Choir
Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi, Jan Martinik, Olga Pasiecznik, Stanislav Kufliuk, Mariusz Godlewski, Adam Palka, Podlasie Opera Philharmonic Choir
The Norwegian National Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Terje Boye Hansen
