Vinci: La Partenope

A Musical Gem with Tongue-in-cheek Production
A musical gem with tongue-in-cheek production equals great fun. Even if the composer Leonard Vinci titled his opera a "Drama per Musica", Partenope is in fact an entertaining sophisticated light weight comedic experience. For the sake of history I must add that the title of the opera by Vinci when first presented at the Teatro S. Giovanni Grisostomo at carnival 1725 was "La Rosmira fedele". It was based on a Neopolitan score by Dominico Natale Sarro "Partenope" to which Vinci had contributed. (Partenope is the patron of Naples). Vinci had only a few weeks to come up with a new score for Venice so his Rosmira contains much material from Sarro; all recitatives and most orchestral work- all arias are by Vinci. The libretto by Stampiglia had been used by several composers.
The star of this presentation is the presentation. The sets are standard classic but the costumes, gestures, balletic movements and acting are all high comedy (parody?) and combined with excellent vocalization and...

"Historically Informed" Staging
Attention, all you who have ever fretted about "Regietheater" or ranted about "Eurotrash" in a production of an 18th C opera! This production is perhaps your dream come true, as aesthetically "authentic" in visual and theatrical values as any living audience could possibly tolerate. The costumes, it's true, are bizarre ... ludicrous in fact, with the male characters wearing ballooning skirts and feathered helmets ... but they are recognizably based on costume sketches from the archives of the French theater in the Ancien Regime. The stage machinery is patently hand-operated and the sets are charmingly pre-modern. The lighting ... well, that's blessedly electrical. The gestures, posture, facial expressions, etc. of the singers are all as stylized, affected, and ballet-like as the performers can make them, though some of the singers are plainly more consistent in maintaining their poses than others. Some of the rear-stage antics of the dancers are unlikely to have been compatible with...

Opera plus intermezzo makes for a full Baroque performance
The key to appreciating this dvd is to handle it as a full theatrical experience rather than watching an opera. What do I mean by that? This entertaining performance is meant to be a full evening's show and not JUST the opera.

Taking us back in time to when this was performed (1720's), the show opens with a very funny "intermezzo" (see below), and two other intermezzos between Acts 1 and 2, and Acts 2 and 3. These were comic pieces, meant to contrast with the main opera seria work.

Here, the main opera "Partenope" is a fairly comic piece to begin with. Prior to the opera, Rosmira, betrothed of Arsace, was rejected by him as he now pursues (with others) Queen Partenope. So Rosmira, disguised as a male (this is opera remember) follows Arbace to Partenope's court where she makes life miserable for Arsace. (The original name for the libretto was "Rosmira Fidele"- Rosmira, the faithful one.)

The opera is, as I said, an unusually light opera seria...

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