Cedille Records to Release Vinci Opera

Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of Shuman Public Relations)

This coming Friday Cedille Records will release its second recording of a historically-informed performance of an opera from the seventeenth or eighteenth century. This will be a complete account of Artaserse, the final opera by Leonardo Vinci (not to be confused with the other Leonardo), composed in 1730. As was the case with the first release, the performance is by the Haymarket Opera Company, which has been presenting historically-informed operas and oratorios from those two centuries.

Thanks to Ars Minerva, I have already had two past encounters with Vinci’s music. The first of these was a cello concerto performed by American Bach Soloists, but more relevant to this article was my first encounter with a Vinci opera. That opera was Astianatte, which was performed by Ars Minerva in October of 2022, named after Astyanax, who was the son of Hector, the crown prince of Troy, and his wife, Princess Andromache.

The advance material for Artaserse describes the narrative of the opera as a “tale of royal intrigue, murder, secret love, and ruthless ambition.” In other words, it “covers all the bases” of Italian opera seria in the eighteenth century. The opera is in three acts, and the narrative unfolds a plot of conspiracy and murder that makes the entire four-opera cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen seem like a walk in the park. As might be expected, this involves a generous number of characters in conflict, all of whom get to express their intentions through solo arias. Each of the acts fills a single CD, so the overall listening experience is not quite as demanding as most encounters with Richard Wagner.

I have no trouble confessing that none of the six vocalists in this opera were familiar to me. Nevertheless, my past experience with Vinci served me well, allowing me to follow all three acts with a basic sense of how the narrative was unfolding. Conductor Craig Trompeter knew how to keep things moving as each of the vocalists advanced the narrative within a “context” established by the Haymarket Opera Orchestra.

To be fair, however, I have to acknowledge the old saying that “this the sort of thing that people who like that sort of thing will like!” So it is that I began with a citation of my past experiences with Ars Minerva. Those experience prepared me for both the pace of the music and the twists and turns of the narrative. As one who likes “that sort of thing,” I came away with much more than a little sense of satisfaction!