Caio Fabbricio
Miriam Allen, Anna Gorbachyova-Ogilvie Sopranos
Fleur Barron, Hannah Poulsom, Jess Dandy Mezzo-sopranos
Helen Charlston Alto
Morgan Pearse Bass
London Early Opera
Bridget Cunningham Director
Signum Classics SIGCD 713
Full price
The Review
These days the idea of an artistic director who was also a composer presenting an opera by a contemporary the year after its first production would be thought of as a co-production.
Before the days of recording or copyright, though, the liberties taken with the original were considerable and the results have become known as pasticcios, pastiche operas. That is not quite fair either because, while there were additions and rearrangements (and often new words), the core of the first composer’s work often remained. That is the case with Handel’s reworking of Johann Hasse’s Caio Fabbricio (Caius, not Ciao!), given in the 1733 London season.
Hasse was fifteen years younger than Handel and came from Hamburg, so probably knew the latter’s frequent correspondent, Telemann. He headed to Italy in his early twenties (as Handel himself had done) and this opera was first heard in Rome in 1732, by which time Hasse had made a big name for himself in Naples. It was clearly a success because, apart from Handel’s version, it was heard two years later in Dresden, the capital of Saxony.
The real links between productions were the singers. Then, as now, the pool of really good singers able to fill opera houses across Europe was relatively small, and the fashion for heroic roles to be sung by castratos made it much smaller still. They carried their favourite arias, their greatest hits, with them and if you wanted the stars in your company for a season or a part of one, then it was wise to let them sing them, even if to different words. Audiences wanted the latest, and the opportunity was usually in the contract; so into Hasse’s opera Handel inserted arias by many of his Italian competitors – Vinci, Sellito, Dio etc. Two of the best in Act II are by Francesco Corselli and Tomaso Albinoni.
In the case of London, though, his audience also wanted to hear Handel’s music, not just see him conducting other people’s. The compromise was for him to write the recitatives and the instrumental interludes. The mash-up holds together remarkably well, though it probably made audiences realise that in Handel they had a composer way above his rivals, even if court politics in London in the early years of George II’s reign meant he was less appreciated than he should have been. Factions demonstrated their affiliations by going to different theatres and in 1733 Handel was up against stiff opposition.
For all the quality of Hasse and the others, one misses the sheer melodic invention and real passion that Handel almost always rose to somewhere in his own operas. However, Bridget Cunningham has put put together an impressively researched reconstruction and her direction is sure, the players she has assembled accomplished (a shout out for the horns, Gavin Edwards and Richard Bayliss). The recording, made in the lofty setting of All Saints, East Finchley, balances the voices and orchestra impeccably.
With so many of the voices in the middle range, it can be difficult to keep track of who is singing when – something that would be obvious in the theatre. As the only male voice (since the castrati parts are sung by women, not countertenors), it is something of a relief when the mellifluous bass of Morgan Pearse appears in the title role. Fabbricio might have his name on the cover, though, but he is not given much to do in Handel’s version, largely it seems because his chosen singer, Gustav Waltz, was unwell.
For most of the time the singers match the orchestra’s high standards, particularly Fleur Barron as Pirro (King Pyrrhus of Tarentum) and Miriam Allen as Sestia. The big role of Volusio is taken by Anna Gorbachyova-Ogilvie who is splendid at times but occasionally dips just below the note, which is distracting on repeated listening. For all its oddities, though, Handel was more than justified in pulling together a coherent opera from these disparate components and London Early Opera deserve fulsome thanks for bringing it back to life.
SM