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EARLY MUSIC REVIEW
August 7, 2004
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By Rebekah Ahrendt
Saturday night witnessed the rebirth of Tomaso Albinoni's serenata Il nascimento dell'Aurora (The Rising of the Dawn) on Saturday night. A work rarely (if ever) performed in the modern period, the serenata was brought to glorious light by the City Concert Opera Orchestra (CCOC) at San Francisco's First Unitarian Church, under the direction of Tom Busse.
The serenata is a hybrid form somewhere between an opera, a cantata and a celebratory ode. Serenatas were generally written to celebrate major public events such as births or marriages among the royalty. Il nascimento dell'Aurora, which Albinoni described on the title page as a “Festa Pastorale,” equates Aurora with Elisabeth Christine of Spain, wife of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. It was most likely written for a celebration of her birthday and arrival in Barcelona in 1711, during the Spanish War of Succession. Though the program notes argue for a performance in Barcelona, a more likely candidate may be the Austrian Ambassador's home in Venice, especially considering that Albinoni spent his entire extremely long career in his hometown.
Regardless of its original performance situation, the work is an allegorical ode whose flimsy libretto is set in the mouths of five characters from Classical mythology — Daphne, Zeffiro, Flora, Apollo and Peneo (the river god father of Daphne) — accompanied on Saturday's occasion by a full complement of strings and large continuo. The story revolves around celebrations of Aurora/Elisabeth Christina's birth while demonstrating the importance of chaste love and heirs. In other words, typical fodder for the eighteenth-century private audience of nobility. Unfortunately, the libretto, already short on clarity, was sometimes further obfuscated by the translation provided. Long passages of recitative were thus slightly difficult to make sense of (for the singers as well?), but were held together by the fine links forged by harpsichordist Gilbert Martinez and his continuo cohorts.
Albinoni's score, prepared for this performance by Adrian Chandler, is black with the florid ornamentation that infected much of early eighteenth-century music. Luckily, the fine singers and instrumentalists assembled by the CCOC were well up to the challenge. As it is a long work (about two hours), I will merely mention the highlights, which for some reason mostly occurred towards the end. Baritone Dan Stanley as Peneo reached his apex in the last of his four arias, “Se l'Alba io scoregeró” (If I perceive the dawn). His velvety tone added depth to the light score, and moved with an agility much appreciated in a voice of his range. Even lusher was the voice of Flora, sung by mezzo-soprano Sonia Gariaeff. In five arias, the audience was treated to the full and pleasing range of her capabilities for rich sustained notes and quick acrobatics. A real standout was her “Quando nasce il Ciel l'Aurora” (When Aurora is born in heaven). Countertenor Clifton Massey sang the part of Apollo extremely well. Playing on Apollo's reputation as the inventor of the lyre and the finest singer ever, Albinoni designed the aria con l'archliuto (aria with obbligato archlute) “Con Cetra pił sonora” (With more sonorous lyre). Lutenist Scott Shubeck performed the enormously difficult obbligato part beautifully, creating a shimmering backdrop for Massey's florid showoff aria. Another beautiful aria for Massey was “Pianta bella, pianta amata” (Fair plant, beloved plant), this time accompanied by Anthony Martin who played the obbligato line on a darkly rich viola. The contrast between Massey's light and flexible countertenor and Martin's plaintive viola was especially poignant.
Naturally, Albinoni reserved the flashiest writing for the sopranos. Christina Schiffner, in the trouser role of Zeffiro, delivered some of the best performances of the evening. An accomplished actress, her recitatives were outstanding. Her big hit aria was “Bella è l'Alba” (Fair is the dawn). Already infused with Spanish flavor by Albinoni, the orchestra spiced up the aria by adding guitar, castanets and tambourine. Schiffner danced her way through the intricately patterned vocal line, and a big finish elicited spontaneous applause from the audience (a historical practice that I would like to hear more of at performances). The prima donna role of Daphne was sung by Dvora Djoraev. At the moment she decides to become a tree in order to celebrate Aurora in perpetuity, Daphne sings the extremely affective aria “Questa fronda” (These leaves). Djoraev delivered deliciously, her lyric voice adding an aura of high romanticism to this plaint of the high baroque. She was supported by the delicate texture of high string trio, played transparently by violinists Anthony Martin and Kati Kyme with violist Maria Caswell. By the end of the program, I felt like I had received a crash course in early eighteenth-century Italian vocal music. Albinoni, though in many ways an individualist, fell under the Vivaldian spell in the early part of the century, and it certainly showed in this work. I felt the orchestra and singers, under Busse's minimal and effective baton and with the coaching of Martinez, did a fine job overall of presenting the flash and filigree of this (mostly frivolous) music. But frivolity is not always a negative quality — for a chilly summer evening in San Francisco, it spelled fun. I look forward to what new delights the CCOC will present in the future.
(Rebekah Ahrendt holds the Artist's Diploma in viola da gamba and historical performance practice from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (NL). Currently, she is a graduate student in historical musicology at the University of California, Berkeley.)
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Dvora Djoraev