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Home » Composers » German Composers » GF Handel » Handel Operas » Alessandro
Alessandro
By George Frideric Handel (Georg Friedrich Händel)
Recordings
| Handel Opera Collection. Sony dhm 88697489402 (22 CDs, April 2009). Details. This reissue includes the Sigiswald Kuijken recording of Alessandro, which has been out of print for many years. The best of the remaining opera recordings are Lotario (Curtis), Partenope (Kuijken) & Rodelinda (Schneider). Of these, only Schneider's Rodelinda has been superseded by a clearly superior recording. The others are of little or no interest: Malgoire's lackluster Rinaldo, Serse & Tamerlano and the comically incompetent old Rudel recording of Giulio Cesare. No librettos are included, nor are they available online. US | UK | FR | DE | CA | JP |
 Handel.
Alessandro. (HWV 21, London 1726). dhm 1C 157-16 9537 3
(4 LPs 1985), reissued by EMI on 3 CDs as 7 47910 8, and
reissued in 1990 by BMG as dhm Editio Classica GD 77110.
Sigiswald Kuijken, La Petite Bande. Alessandro: René Jacobs,
countertenor; Rossane: Sophie Boulin, soprano; Lisaura: Isabelle
Poulenard, soprano; Tassile: Jean Nirouët, countertenor; Clito:
Stephen Varcoe, bass; Leonato: Guy de Mey, tenor; Cleone: Ria
Bollen, contralto. To save a few cents, EMI carefully excised
the English translation from the facsimile libretto copied in
the LP edition, but they reportedly included the English version
in the booklet with the CD reissue.
UK |
DE |
FR |
JP |
Alessandro is an above-average Handel opera, and this still ranks as above average recording, despite a typically affected performance by René Jacobs. (At least he didn't direct.) As usual, Sigiswald Kuijken sought to honor the composers intentions with an actual historically-informed performance. There are no reorchestrations with strumming guitar, organ, or harp, as found on numerous more recent baroque opera recordings. It's a typically fine studio recording by the great Dr. Thomas Gallia and Klaus L. Neumann. In his liner notes, SK wrote:
In our production of the opera we have tried to stay as close as possible to the original production. When in doubt, we generally followed Handel's autograph (which differs, however, from the original production at some points). Furthermore, for reasons of musical taste we have incorporated a few small emendations which were later made, simply because we found them more colourful and interesting; they were taken from Handel's conducting score (in the Hamburg Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek), which was the principal source for the version published by Chrysander in the old Complete Edition of Handel's works. The Italian libretto of the London premiere was also of great help.
It's interesting to note how many members of Kuijken's orchestra went on to successful solo and conducting careers. Here is the list from the Alessandro LP booklet:
|
La Petite Bande |
Flote Ricardo Kanji Koen Dieltiens Oboe Pol Dombrecht Taka Kitazato Michel Henry Marcel Ponseele Fagott Danny Bond Donna Hyry Agrell Horn Piet Dombrecht Claude Maury Trompete Friedemann Immer Kay Immer Cembalo Robert Kohnen Herman Stinders Theorbe Konrad Junghänel Pauken Pierre de Boeck |
For reasons known only to the marketing department at BMG, the Editio Classica reissue was not released in North America, whereas the Editio Classica reissue of Partenope, originally released seven years earlier than Alessandro, was marketed in North America. Moreover, Partenope has been kept in print continuously, while Alessandro was allowed to go out of print for the third time in the early 1990s. With no better recording of Alessandro on the horizon and Handel operas more popular than ever, reissuing this CD with a libretto and liner notes would seem like a foolproof way for Sony to make some easy money with minimal investment.
Related Operas
Steffani. La superba d'Alessandro. (Hanover 1690). Libretto by Ortensio Mauro. "A slightly altered version was given there in 1691 with the title Il zelo di Leonato, but Rolli followed the original version." (Strohm, page 53). The Hamburg performances of 1726 featured Steffani's recitatives, translated into German, and Handel's arias.
References
Winton Dean. Handel's Operas, 1726-1741 (Boydell Press 2006).
R. Strohm. "Handel and his Italian opera texts." Essays on Handel and the Italian Opera. (Oxford University Press 1985).