MEHTA, BEJUN

Hoewel countertenor Bejun Mehta vooral beroemd is door zijn rollen in barokopera’s, schitterde hij dit jaar ook in liederen van Finzi en Vaughan Williams én in de wereldpremière van George Benjamins Written on skin. Een zeer veelzijdig solist dus, die samen met René Jacobs en de Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin nu het begin van de klassieke opera verkent. In zijn voorwoord bij Alceste sprak Gluck van een nieuwe operavorm. Hasse, Mozart en J.C. Bach en Gluck zelf streefden naar realistischer expressie dan die van de gekunstelde barokopera en hun aria’s worden door Mehta op indrukwekkende wijze vertolkt. Aanrader.


Che puro ciel
The Rise of Classical Opera
Bach, J C:
Artaserse: No, che non ha la sorte
Artaserse: Vo solcando un mar crudele
Gluck:
Se il fulmine sospendi (from Ezio)
Pensa a serbarmi, o cara (from Ezio)
Hasse, J A:
Dei di Roma, ah perdonate! (from Il Trionfo di Clelia)
Mozart:
Già dagli occhi il velo è tolto (from Mitridate, rè di Ponto)
Traetta:
Che puro ciel! (from Orfeo ed Euridice)
Vieni a' regni del riposo (from Orfeo ed Euridice)
Perché tacer degg'io?...Cara, lontano ancora (from Ascanio in Alba)
Ah, se lo vedi piangere (from Antigona)
Dormi Oreste! (from Ifigenia in Tauride)
Ah di sì nobil alma (from Ascanio in Alba)
Ah, sì, da te dipende (from Antigona)
Bejun Mehta (counter-tenor)
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, René Jacobs

In the famous Preface to Alceste (1767), Christoph Willibald Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi posited a new direction for opera. They spoke of moving beyond Baroque forms, of striving for a new naturalism in opera. They wanted, in Calzabigi's lovely phrase, to liberate the language of the heart. Taken from the height of this Reform period, the arias on this disc reveal composers exploring and experimenting, at struggle and at play, as they create the new forms that bring to opera the noble simplicity of the Classical era.