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Max Emanuel Cencic, Julia Lezhneva, Mary-Ellen Nesi – Porpora: Germanico in Germania (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:38:13 minutes | 3,47 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
Until now, Porpora’s Germanico in Germania has, with the exception of one or two virtuoso arias, remained firmly hidden on library shelves. However, during his lifetime Porpora was as famous for teaching singing (one of his pupils was Farinelli) as for his compositions, so it’s no wonder that his score is a veritable feast of vocal delights ripe for resurrection. As a composer, Porpora’s reputation spread throughout Italy, especially to Venice, where he was “maestro delle figlie at the Ospedale degli Incurabili” (one of the city’s famous music schools for orphans) from 1726 to 1733, and Rome, where the Teatro Capranica saw the premiere of Germanico in Germania in February 1732. In Rome, by Papal edict, operas were “all-male”, and this cast was seriously “all-star”. Clearly Porpora enjoyed stretching the singers to their utmost potential, employing every vocal trick at his command. Germanico was played by the experienced alto castrato Domenico Annibali. The en travesti female roles were taken, as was often the case, by young singers at the start of their careers. For this recording boasting another “all-star” cast led by countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic, female roles are of course held by female singers. The excellent Capella Cracoviensis, playing on period instruments, is led by Jan Tomasz Adamus.
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Max Emanuel Cencic, Armonia Atenea, George Petrou – Porpora: Opera Arias (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:57 minutes | 1,41 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
Grammy-nominated artist Max Emanuel Cencic presents Nicola Porpora: Opera Arias, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Porpora’s death.
Featuring 7 world premiere recordings!
Max Emanuel Cencic explores the operatic arias of rarely performed composer Nicola Porpora. Armonia Atenea accompanies Cencic in his exploration with George Petrou conducting the new album released by Decca Classics.
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Max Emanuel Cencic, Armonia Atenea – Hasse: Siroe – Re Di Persia (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:46:01 minutes | 3,02 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
The world-premiere recording of Siroe re di Persia by Johann Adolf Hasse, whose music encapsulates the refined aristocratic cultural tastes of the European Ancien Régime. Offering true musical fireworks and delights, Siroe is led by Max Cencic in the title role with the vital orchestra of Armonia Atenea and their high-powered conductor, George Petrou: the same vibrant partnership which saw their first album on Decca, Handel’s Alessandro, win a clutch of top awards. Renowned for his gifts as a melodist, in Siroe Hasse offers a feast of rare vocal delights in the telling of a vivid story of passion, jealousy and intrigue.
Cencic is supported by a truly stunning cast, with Decca’s award-winning Julia Lezhneva, countertenor Franco Fagioli (whose own debut album on DG will come soon), Juan Sancho, Mary-Ellen Nesi, and Lauren Snouffer.
Remarkably famous during his lifetime, the composer Hasse was acclaimed by his contemporaries as one of the most important artists of the 18th Century: the greatest singers of the time clamoured to perform in his operas.
Max Cencic & Parnassus Arts’ new stage production of Siroe premiered in June 2014 at Athens’ Megaron to enthusiastic acclaim from audience and critics alike, and will tour to Versailles and Vienna.
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Max Emanuel Cencic – Venezia – Opera Arias of the Serenissima (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:26 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Erato – Warner Classics
“With these arias by Vivaldi and his lesser-known contemporaries I am hoping both to capture the musical tastes of Venice in the early 18th century and to recreate the moods and colours of a city that was open to the world. Venice was one of Europe’s most important musical centres, both exporting its operatic glories and importing new ideas from Rome and Naples.”
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Max Emanuel Cencic, George Petrou, Il Pomo d’Oro, Lauren Snouffer – Handel: Ottone, HWV 15 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:23:08 minutes | 3,66 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.
One should not think that at the time when Handel was around, an opera was a finished product, etched in stone, the score of which was some kind of Holy Grail that would not suffer any tampering with, be it so benign. From that point of view, Handel’s Ottone is a case in point. Some extensive adjustments probably arose from Handel’s collaboration with the famous prima donna Francesca Cuzzoni, who had arrived in London in December 1722, but a fortnight before the first performance, and immediately threw a tantrum. Several of her arias she rejected and had had Handel substitute with entirely different new music. According to Mainwaring’s Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel (1760), having one day some words with Cuzzoni on her refusing to sing the aria Falsa imagine, the composer had shouted, in French: “I know very well that you are a veritable she-devil: but I will show you that I am Beelzebub the Chief of the Devils ” and with this he took her up by the waist, and, if she uttered another word, swore that he would fling her out of the window. This being said, many of the modifications he made during the rehearsal period had nothing to do with Cuzzoni. All in all, eleven arias and one duet were finished but then discarded and replaced before the first performance, and several other arias were considerably revised . It is impossible to determine which changes were instigated by Handel himself on artistic grounds and which were compromises in order to satisfy his singers’ whims and overblown egos. In addition to rejections, redrafts of scenes and wholesale substitutions by Handel during the opera’s composition and preparation, further amendments were also made during its first run . Moreover, he replaced and also added several extra arias for the twelfth performance, which took place on 26 March 1723 after a break of several weeks because of Lent. So: what does “the real” Ottone look like? This recording presents a reconstruction of the complete first performance version, but it also incorporates Handel’s expansions to two scenes reworked especially for Cuzzoni. As an appendix, there are three bonus tracks of new arias composed for the title-role in Handel’s 1726 revival, making it an Ottone as complete as possible. All this extra music will allow the listener to enjoy even more the great voices of the recording, to begin with the countertenor Max Cencic, but also the soprano Lauren Snouffer – who sings the part initially held by the infamous Cuzzoni –, accompanied by the ensemble Il pomo d’oro playing on period instruments and conducted by George Petrou.
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