Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Hasse - Il Ruggiero, ovvero L'Eroica Gratitudine (opera in 3 acts) - Bosman, Ensemble Musica Rara

 


 

 

 

 

Review:

Johann Adolph Hasse (baptized 25 March 1699 – 16 December 1783) was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music. Married to soprano Faustina Bordoni and a great friend of librettist Pietro Metastasio, whose libretti he frequently set, Hasse was a pivotal figure in the development of opera seria and 18th-century music.

In correspondence to Ortes (12 January 1771) Hasse  wrote of wishing his mostFaustina_Bordoni_by_Nazari recent opera were his last, yet disclosing that the empress had requested him to write one more for the wedding in Milan of Archduke Ferdinand and Maria Beatrice d’Este later that year. This opera, both Metastasio’s and Hasse’s last, was difficult to write, as they protested in correspondence. Moreover, as Hasse told Ortes, ‘the Milanese would like a lot of spectacle and the fewest possible recitatives. Il Ruggiero is certainly a well-written libretto, but is lacking in the former and abounding in the latter’. That the opera had initially been intended for the wedding in 1770 of Archduchess Maria Antonia (Marie Antoinette) and the dauphin of France (later Louis XVI) explains the medieval legend selected as plot, but not the lack of dances and choruses for which Hasse thought the Milanese had a taste, and which Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba, the companion piece in Milan, successfully displayed.

libretto-ruggiero Despite G. B. Mancini claiming that Hasse was the padre della musica, and despite the composer's massive popularity as a figure at the very forefront of 18th-century serious Italian opera, after his death Hasse's reputation vastly declined and his music lay mostly unperformed (with the exception of some of his sacred works, which were revived now and again in Germany). In particular, his operas sank without trace and revival only begun as the 20th century approached its end: Gluck's reforms took opera away from Hasse's style and Metastasio's Arcadian ideals to a new direction from which it would not return.

Hasse, Johann Adolf (1699-1783) (libretto: Pietro Metastasio)
'Il Ruggiero', ovvero 'L'Eroica Gratitudine' ['Rogerus, or Heroic Gratitude'] - opera in three acts:
Robert Chafin (tenor: Carlo Magno), Silvia Bossa (sop: Bradamante), Gianluca Belfiori Doro (countertenor: Ruggiero), Alla Simonischvili (sop: Leone), Barbara Vignudelli (sop: Clotilde), Mauro Bonfanti (tenor: Ottone), Musica Rara, Arnold Bosman (conductor) [recorded in the Verdi Hall, Milan Conservatory on 16th May 2000]

 

flac, cover

5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I downloaded both part 6s and renamed first as the 5th, it worked but anyway missed cd2. bands 2 to 5. Regardless I tried "repair" tool.

    Would you please help us with a new upload?

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  3. Same problem here, I'm afraid. Any suggestions?... Thank you.

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  4. Thank you, Flash Gordon!
    Enjoying the missing tracks already!
    I hope you're well. You haven't been very active uploading lately...
    Enjoy your Easter holiday!

    Cheers
    actman

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  5. Yes, I had to take the children for a short holiday :-) Have a nice Easter too!

    ReplyDelete

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