Monteverdi and the parola scenica in performance
2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 45; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/em/cax060
ISSN1741-7260
Autores Tópico(s)Theater, Performance, and Music History
ResumoMonteverdi’s music has always featured frequently among early music recordings; indeed, a thorough look at their recording history, well beyond the limit of this review, would allow us a glimpse at the history of historically informed performances from the early recordings of the Concentus Musicus Wien and The Consort of Musicke to the latest recordings by the likes of Concerto Italiano, La Venexiana, the Cappella Mediterranea, L’Arpeggiata and so on. This batch of nine CDs and one DVD, with release dates from 2012 to 2017, forms a brilliant and variegated homage to Monteverdi in this 450th anniversary whilst being exemplary of this continuous music production, whether as part of individual performers’ own projects to record the entire output of Monteverdi or as innovative exploration of the composer’s music, highlighting themes and subjects across his madrigals and operas. One aspect that is very interesting to consider through these recordings is whether and how the different groups have paid attention to what we might call Monteverdi’s parola scenica. I am consciously using here a label—parola scenica—that is of course associated with Verdi, but I think it is possible to use it in relation to Monteverdi’s music, and not just his operas but his madrigals too (Ellen Rosand compares the two composers in the conclusion to her book Monteverdi’s last operas: a Venetian trilogy (Berkeley, 2007); see also M. Calcagno, ‘Monteverdi’s parole sceniche’, Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, ix/1 (2003)). There is indeed in Monteverdi an attention to the parola scenica, words that by themselves create a sense of drama, and whose delivery have to be carefully articulated, nuanced, with a sense of breathing through them that could make or break the overall performance. The following CDs in this respect show interesting results, sometimes more and sometimes less successful.
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