Paer: Sofonisba

Jennifer Larmore, Paul Nilon, Rebecca Evans, Colin Lee, Mirco Palazzi, Philharmonia Orchestra, Marco Guidarini

Erschienen am 01.01.05 bei Opera Rara
Künstler: Jennifer Larmore, Paul Nilon, Rebecca Evans, Colin Lee, Mirco Palazzi, Philharmonia Orchestra, Marco Guidarini
Genre: Oper

Digitales Booklet

Verfügbar in

16-Bit/44.1 kHz Stereo

Musik-Streaming

Hören Sie dieses Album mit unseren Apps in hoher Audio-Qualität

Testen Sie Qobuz kostenlos und hören Sie sich das Album an

Hören Sie dieses Album im Rahmen Ihres Streaming-Abonnements mit den Qobuz-Apps

Abonnement abschließen

Hören Sie dieses Album im Rahmen Ihres Streaming-Abonnements mit den Qobuz-Apps

Download

Kaufen Sie dieses Album und laden Sie es in verschiedenen Formaten herunter, je nach Ihren Bedürfnissen.

Text in englischer Sprache verfügbar

Opera Rara is a label long devoted to the exposure of rare and obscure operas, mostly from the Baroque through Romantic periods. Try this one on for size -- Ferdinando Paër's Sofonisba, an opera of 1805 vintage written during Paër's employ as Kapellmeister to the Saxon court of Elector Frederick Augustus II, soon to fall to Napoleon's intrigues. Sofonisba was used to open the Teatro del Corso in Bologna, and presumably has not been heard again until this recording was made in 2005.
Sofonisba is the tale of the third century B.C. Carthaginian princess who, captured during the Second Punic War, decided to opt for poison rather than to be paraded through the streets of Rome. Keeping to form, that's not exactly what happens at the end of Paër's opera, set to a libretto written by a lawyer named Domenico Rosetti, who in turn knocked it off from a 70-year-old Zanetti text already set by several composers. The title role is performed by Jennifer Larmore, who is in fine form here, along with Paul Nilon who serves as her foil in the role of Siface (i.e., Syphax, if you know your Porphyry.) This recording of Sofonisba is condensed, and perhaps mercifully so, as the courtly conventions of the late classical period can really slow an opera down, although Rosetti's libretto is fairly well planned and does provide some plausible dramatic moments. There is only one disc, but the judicious process of pruning seems to have yielded the fruit, rather than the rind. What one gets with the Opera Rara set of Sofonisba is a lot, as the sizeable box also contains a huge booklet and a catalog of prior releases.
Stylistically, Sofonisba sounds close to Mozart, although it is not as immediate, nor are Paër's tunes as memorable. Nonetheless, it is a very good classical opera, and is kept moving by Paër's variable, and at times almost kaleidoscopic, orchestration, not to mention excellent singing by the principals. Even with that, the listener should take a break somewhere between tracks 10 and 16 just so that Paër's Sofonisba continues to sound fresh.

© TiVo

Weitere Informationen

Paer: Sofonisba

Jennifer Larmore

Sie hören derzeit Ausschnitte der Musik.

Hören Sie mehr als 100 Millionen Titel mit unseren Streaming-Abonnements

Hören Sie diese Playlist und mehr als 100 Millionen Tracks mit unseren Streaming-Abonnements

Ab 12,49€/Monat

Sofonisba, Act 1: "O dell'armi gran Nume possente" (Scipione, Lelio, Chorus)

Marco Guidarini