Dido and Aeneas by Fabio Bonizzoni / La Risonanza

John Eccles, Gottfried Finger, Henry Purcell

Fabio Bonizzoni / La Risonanza

Dido and Aeneas

Price: € 19.95
Format: SACD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917273724
Catnr: CC 72737
Release date: 07 October 2016
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917273724

Catalogue number
CC 72737

Release date
07 October 2016

"Old music is more often a sensible reconstruction of disappeared sounds, but we feel that the version of La Risonanza at Purell's younger contemporaries would certainly have been appreciated."

Kerk & Leven, 16-11-2017

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

The charm of this opera is in that it contains everything, like Cervantes’ Don Quixote: any life experience is within it. Love, hate, death, dream, despair, the innocent and the wicked play. Purcell’s awareness in portraying such opposite feelings is amazing as well as the room that he leaves to the conductor. So, here is why a new “Dido”: as an artist in love with this opera, Fabio Bonizzoni wants to deliver his reading. He wants to translate Purcell’s “sign” his own way, how much this opera is alive, lively, modern, contemporary. How Purcell’s genius was able to convey Dido’s despair and Aeneas’ cowardice and how much Purcell himself had fun in depicting the plot. Fabio Bonizzoni, one of the leading Italian harpsichordists and organists of his generation, graduated in organ, organ composition and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatorium in The Hague in Ton Koopman’s class. He frequently enjoys commitments as guest conductor: in recent times he has be

Dido and Aeneas, een reis langs tragedie, vreugde, liefde en haat
Dirigent Fabio Bonizzoni voert in deze opname een operatesk meesterwerk van Henry Purcell uit. In Dido and Aeneas leidt hij zijn ensemble La Risonanza tot grote hoogte.

Bonizzoni over deze uitvoering: “De charme van deze opera is, dat het alles in zich heeft. Liefde, haat, dood, dromen, wanhoop, het spel van de onschuldige, maar ook doortrapt spel." Het begrip waarmee Purcell al deze tegenstrijdige gevoelens schetst, is net zo verbazingwekkend als de ruimte die hij de dirigent geeft. Daarom zet Bonizzoni hier een 'nieuwe' Dido neer, verliefd als hij is op dit werk. Zijn interpretatie laat zien hoe levendig en eigentijds die opera is. Hoe het genie Purcell erin slaagde om Dido's wanhoop en Aeneas' lafheid over te brengen. En hoeveel plezier de componist daar zelf in had.
En dan het koor, klankbord voor de meest extreme gevoelens! Dat heeft, lijkt het wel, de hoofdrol in deze opera. Het in verhouding 'beperkte' materiaal stond de dirigent toe zijn verbeelding de vlucht te laten nemen en zijn heftige gevoelens om te zetten in muziek. Dat maakt het werk van een dirigent de moeite waard, aldus Bonizzoni. Dido leert ons dat 'special effects' niet nodig zijn. Het leven is zelf een 'special effect', een prachtige reis langs tragedie, vreugde, liefde en haat.

De Italiaanse dirigent Fabio Bonizzoni studeerde cum laude af in orgel en klavecimbel. In 1987 kwam hij naar Nederland om verder te studeren aan het Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag. Na enkele jaren met bekende barokorkesten gespeeld te hebben, richtte hij zijn eigen ensemble La Risonanza op. Hij is een van de meest toonaangevende barokdirigenten van deze tijd.

Henry Purcell (Westminster,1659-1695) was een Engelse componist van barokmuziek. Ook nu nog, wordt zijn muziek vaak gespeeld en opgenomen. Hij schreef kerk- en toneelmuziek, opera's en instrumentale muziek. Purcell was een populair componist van lofzangen en schreef muziek voor koninklijke gelegenheden. Zijn opera Dido en Aeneas wordt het vaakst uitgevoerd.

Fabio Bonizzoni: Der Charme dieser Oper liegt darin, dass sie alles beinhaltet, wie Cervantes' Don Quixote: jegliche Lebenserfahrung liegt darin – Liebe, Hass, Tod, Traum, Verzweiflung, unschuldiges und durchtriebenes Spiel. Purcells bewusstes Porträt solch gegensätzlicher Gefühle ist ebenso erstaunlich wie der Raum, den er dem Dirigenten lässt. Und deshalb brauchen wir eine neue Dido: als Künstler, der diese Oper liebt, möchte ich meine Lesart besser übermitteln. Ich möchte Purcells „Zeichen“ auf meine eigene Weise übersetzen und zeigen, wie lebendig, modern und zeitgemäß diese Oper ist. Wie Purcells Genie Didos Verzweiflung und Aneas' Feigheit ausdrücken konnte, und wie viel Spaß Purcell selbst dabei hatte, die Handlung darzustellen.
Und der Chor! Er ist wahrscheinlich der wirkliche Protagonist der Oper, die Klangbasis für die extremsten Gefühle. Das vergleichsweise dünne Material erlaubt es der Vorstellungskraft des Dirigenten abzuheben, berührt zu werden, und zu ersinnen, wie Gefühle in Musik beschrieben werden können. Solch eine kreative Erfahrung! Das Publikum aus der herrschenden emotionalen und intellektuellen Taubheit zu wecken ist, was unsere Arbeit bedeutungsvoll macht. Dido lehrt uns, dass es keiner Spezialeffekte bedarf. Das Leben selbst ist ein Spezialeffekt, eine wunderbare Reise erwachsen aus Tragödie und Freude, Liebe und Hass.

Artist(s)

La Risonanza

Founded by Fabio Bonizzoni in 1995 as a vocal and instrumental group, La Risonanza is now a chamber orchestra on period instruments. It has a flexible instrumentation depending upon the repertoire performed and it occasionally collaborates with guest choirs for performances of larger works. The ensemble particularly focuses its attention on Italian style music composed between the end of the 17th and the first half of the 18th Century.
La Risonanza’s recording career started in 1996 with an album completely devoted to Girolamo Frescobaldi. Subsequently it produced albums with the Missa Non sine quare of Johann Caspar Kerll, Barbara Strozzi and Luigi Rossi cantatas, Giuseppe Sammartini, Michel Corrette and Franz Joseph Haydn organ concertos.
The group regularly performs in all major European venues and festivals, including Festival of Utrecht and Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, Festival of Cuenca and Madrid’s Auditorio, Händel Festspiele Halle, Concertgebouw Brugge, Società del Quartetto of Milan and MITO, Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and GOG Society in Genoa.
La Risonanza is “Orchestra in residence” at the festival of Saint-Michel en Thiérache and, since 2016, at the Palazzina Liberty of Milan.

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Coro Costanzo Porta

Fabio Bonizzoni (conductor)

Fabio Bonizzoni is considered one of the leading Italian harpsichordists and organists of his generation. His playing has been defined as “Bright and buoyant, with no tricks […] but plenty of energy and brilliance” (Gramophone). Having graduated in baroque organ and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in Ton Koopman’s class, he played for several years with some of the most important baroque orchestras of our times, in particular with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Le Concert des Nations and Europa Galante. Since 2004, he exclusively devotes himself to his activities as soloist and director, in particular of his own orchestra La Risonanza. His impressive discography includes works by Claudio Merulo, Giovanni Salvatore, Giovanni Picchi, Francesco Geminiani, Bernardo Storace, Domenico Scarlatti, Johann Sebastian Bach (Goldberg Variations and the Art of Fugue), Girolamo Frescobaldi (First and Second Book of Toccatas). With La Risonanza he has completed the project of recording all the...

Fabio Bonizzoni is considered one of the leading Italian harpsichordists and organists of his generation. His playing has been defined as “Bright and buoyant, with no tricks […] but plenty of energy and brilliance” (Gramophone). Having graduated in baroque organ and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in Ton Koopman’s class, he played for several years with some of the most important baroque orchestras of our times, in particular with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Le Concert des Nations and Europa Galante. Since 2004, he exclusively devotes himself to his activities as soloist and director, in particular of his own orchestra La Risonanza.
His impressive discography includes works by Claudio Merulo, Giovanni Salvatore, Giovanni Picchi, Francesco Geminiani, Bernardo Storace, Domenico Scarlatti, Johann Sebastian Bach (Goldberg Variations and the Art of Fugue), Girolamo Frescobaldi (First and Second Book of Toccatas).
With La Risonanza he has completed the project of recording all the Italian Cantatas with instruments by G.F. Handel: this project has been named by the Gramophone Magazine the most important of the decade, and 3 of the 7 CDs of the collection have been awarded the prestigious Handel Stanley Sadie Prize. The last disc of this series, Apollo e Dafne, won the Gramophone Award.
Since 2016, he and La Risonanza are recording for Challenge Classics: a Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and two volumes of Bach harpsichord concertos have appeared so far.
His activity is also enriched by commitments as guest conductor both of baroque and modern orchestras. Since 2014 he is artistic director of Note Etiche, a festival focusing on links between music, ethics and sustainability and, since 2016, he and his orchestra enjoy artistic residency at Palazzina Liberty in their hometown Milan.

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Stefanie True (vocals)

Raffaella Milanesi (vocals)

Italian soprano Raffaella Milanesi completed her studies in her hometown, Rome, at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in 1997.Since then she sang many different roles including: Ottavia in Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea, Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Euridice in Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo, Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Tamiri and Aminta in Il Re Pastore, Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito, Norina in Donizetti`s Don Pasquale and Musetta in Puccini`s La Bohème. She is a regular guest at the opera houses of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bordeaux, Brussels, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Madrid, Montpellier, Paris, Salamanca, Toulouse, Vienna, as well as Festivals like Ambronay, Beaune, Eisenstadt, Innsbruck, Montpellier and Potsdam. She has worked with such distinguished conductors as: Mark Minkowski, Rinaldo...

Italian soprano Raffaella Milanesi completed her studies in her hometown, Rome, at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in 1997.Since then she sang many different roles including: Ottavia in Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea, Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Euridice in Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo, Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Tamiri and Aminta in Il Re Pastore, Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito, Norina in Donizetti`s Don Pasquale and Musetta in Puccini`s La Bohème. She is a regular guest at the opera houses of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bordeaux, Brussels, Lausanne, Luxembourg, Madrid, Montpellier, Paris, Salamanca, Toulouse, Vienna, as well as Festivals like Ambronay, Beaune, Eisenstadt, Innsbruck, Montpellier and Potsdam.
She has worked with such distinguished conductors as: Mark Minkowski, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Ottavio Dantone, Giuliano Carella, Nicola Luisotti, Donato Renzetti, Adam Fischer, Alessandro de Marchi, Andrea Marcon, Enrique Mazzola, Hervé Niquet, Philippe Pierlot, Christophe Rousset and directors such as Christof Loy, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Robert Wilson, Daniele Abbado.

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Richard Helm (vocals)

Iason Marmaras (vocals)

Michela Antenucci (vocals)

Anna Bessi (vocals)

Composer(s)

Henry Purcell

Westminster Abbey is not just the place where British monarchs were crowned, it's also the place where many English great men were burried. Among those was also Henry Purcell. This final resting place had a double meaning for him: firstly, with his status as a composer he deserved a spot in the abbey, but secondly this was also the location where he worked during the reign of Charles II and William & Mary. Most people will recognise the last aria of Purcell's beloved opera Dido and Aeneas: 'Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.' More abstract, but less trenchant are his brilliant Fantasias (for viola da gamba) which Purcell composed in the early 1680s. These are small, at times daringly expirimental works, which...

Westminster Abbey is not just the place where British monarchs were crowned, it's also the place where many English great men were burried. Among those was also Henry Purcell. This final resting place had a double meaning for him: firstly, with his status as a composer he deserved a spot in the abbey, but secondly this was also the location where he worked during the reign of Charles II and William & Mary. Most people will recognise the last aria of Purcell's beloved opera Dido and Aeneas: "Remember me, but ah! forget my fate." More abstract, but less trenchant are his brilliant Fantasias (for viola da gamba) which Purcell composed in the early 1680s. These are small, at times daringly expirimental works, which he carefully dated. Yet, Purcell mostly developed himself as a composer of vocal music, with numerous odes, 'welcome songs', motets (anthems), songs for domestic use (both sacred and secular, both monophonic and polyphonic) and music for theatre.

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Gottfried Finger

Gottfried Finger was a Moravian composer and virtuoso viol player. Born in Olomouc, in the modern-day Czech Republic, and arriving in England in 1685, Finger worked for the court of James II before becoming a freelance composer. He left England and moved to Germany. He died in Mannheim. Finger wrote many works for the viol, but also composed operas.

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John Eccles

Press

Old music is more often a sensible reconstruction of disappeared sounds, but we feel that the version of La Risonanza at Purell's younger contemporaries would certainly have been appreciated.
Kerk & Leven, 16-11-2017

(...) The choruses go well enough, but they are far more convincing sung one-per-part, a I believe Purcell would have expected. (...)
Opera Magazine, 01-4-2017

The result of the emotional and natural singing of the protagonists and the musical refinement of the ensemble is a peculiar music theatre mixture.
Fono Forum, 01-3-2017

The love of Mars and venus proves a delightful postscript.
BBC Music Magazine, 01-3-2017

With a typical British attitude, the critic is a bit surprised and annoyed by the fact that a foreigner dares to play Britsh musical milestones, so he can't help repeating twice the term 'decent' for the performance....
Gramophone, 01-3-2017

Altogether offers the conductor with his ensemble La Risonanza an extremely colorful, crunchy, exciting interpretation.
Opernwelt, 18-2-2017

Rather interesting and beautiful: the recitatives of Dido in the last scene, the traditional approach of the pronunciation, and more than correct fire from La Risonanza.
Luister, 03-2-2017

Consigliati Da Classic Voice - 09/01/2017
Consigliati Da Classic Voice, 09-1-2017

La Risonanza and Coro Constanza Porta playing with great enthusiasm
Opernglas, 02-1-2017

The result is a very lively and varied created and especially emotionally touching scenario around Dido…Choir and orchestra are playing utterly brilliant!
OPER! Das Magazin, 02-1-2017

Add Challenge Classics Highlights
Gramophone, 01-12-2016

Grand as the orchestra La Risonanza and chorus Constanza Porta, in this production on historical instruments are masterfully understand an immersive mood image to create
Ihr Opernratgeber, 27-11-2016

An imaginative reappraisal of original pronunciation makes us listen afresh to the familiar libretto. Recommended.
The Guardian, 20-11-2016

First release on our label by Fabio Bonizzoni, one of Baroque music performance leading conductors of our time.
EOS Classical News Australia, 17-10-2016