On track: Politics into marriage won't go

By WILLIAM DART

There's much more to Vivaldi than endless cycles of his Four Seasons. The French Opus 111 label is committed to letting us hear works that have languished in Italian archives since the 18th century and its Vivaldi Edition, now nine CDs strong, will number 120 by 2015.

The latest release, a three-CD set of La Verita in Cimento, gives us an opera that disappeared for 282 years after its wildly successful Venetian premiere in 1720. Written for the city's carnival celebrations, it features an exotic Turkish setting and examines the emotional tangles that come about when sultans try to mix marriage and politics.

The catalyst in the opera's revival was violinist and conductor Jean-Christophe Spinosi who, with his Ensemble Matheus, staged an experimental production of the work last year, complete with on-stage film and modern costumes.

Some firm decisions were made when it came to recording the piece, one being the replacement of all the cast apart from the brilliant young French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, whose glorious voice seems to float on the breezes of heaven.

The Italian composer is a dab hand at spinning Baroque cliche into poetry and, with storms and rages looming every few minutes, the characters are given some fearsome writing. Listening to Sara Mingardo vying with trumpet one minute and sopranino recorder the next is like experiencing the musical equivalent of a Wimbledon final.

La Verita in Cimento is more than a string of florid showpieces.

The recitatives, some of which clock in at 10 minutes, have dramatic thrust and reveal character.

Nathalie Stutzmann as Damira, the "other woman" in the sultan's life, all but tears one's heart apart, especially in her exchanges with Anthony Rolfe Johnson's beautifully measured Mamaud.

The sheer sound of this music, immaculately recorded in a Brittany church, makes the skin tingle; at times the players seem to thrash their instruments with the fury of a birching.

I defy any casual listener to catch the first Allegro of the opening Sinfonia and not want to investigate further. Try Melindo's first act aria, La del Nilo sullarene, or the rapturous Trio a few numbers later, and purchase may be inevitable.

* Vivaldi, La Verita in Cimento (Opus 111 OP 30365)