Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco - Antonio Vivaldi: Il Giustino (2002)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 655 Mb | Total time: 56:41+79:32 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Virgin Veritas | # 5 45518 2 | Recorded: 2001
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 655 Mb | Total time: 56:41+79:32 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Virgin Veritas | # 5 45518 2 | Recorded: 2001
Supreme master of the Baroque concerto and one of the finest composers of sacred music, Vivaldi is now also being rediscovered as an opera composer of genius. Some credit for this must go to Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco, whose performances of Giustino since 1985 have made this colourful and dramatic work the most widely played of Vivaldi's operas in modern times. Giustino contains an endless flow of Vivaldian melodic inspiration and inventive orchestration; the score calls for a psaltery and for birdsong, while the goddess Fortune descends to the tune of Spring from the Four Seasons. This first recording is based on a concert performance in Rotterdam in 2001; the fine cast is headed by Dominique Labelle as the empress Arianna and Francesca Provvisionato as the plough-boy emperor Giustino.