Dome, Brighton, 21 May 2017
With the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi’s birth it was understandable that there would be celebrations this summer, but Brighton has excelled itself. After I Fagiolinni’s magnificent Vespers at Glyndebourne come Les Talens Lyriques with secular works. Surprisingly, after the opulence of the liturgical settings, these vocal pieces – settings of classical age stories – are far more sparse in their orchestration and harmony, with an intense attention to the text and emotional detail.
They opened with Ballo delle ingrate, a court scene which would originally have involved members of the audience in costume. Here we had to concentrate simply on the score, but what a wonderful piece of understatement it is. Valeria Girardello’s moving Venere pleads with Nathanael Tavernier’s hard-edged Pluto to allow the shades of arrogant women, doomed to eternity in the gloom of Hades, to be allowed out to warn their living relatives. It is a none-too subtle piece of social engineering but so masterfully sung it almost convinces us.
Magdalena Pluta’s Arianna is far more open in her emotional turmoil and genuinely moving. The constant gentle return to O Teseo makes us realise that she will never let go of her love for him. Given the simplicity of the orchestration this is a miracle of detail.
After the interval we heard Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. Though more familiar, the setting still surprises with the intensity of its emotional changes and the ferocity of the writing. The narrative was succinctly handled by Nicolas Maraziotis’ powerful and precise diction. The final baptismal scene alone allows for gentler tones from the organ and strings.
There was a time when the Brighton Festival would have brought us fully staged versions of Monteverdi’s operas. Perhaps the costs are too high today – but if we had had to swap either of these events for one of the more familiar operas it would have been a great loss.