Vivaldi - Griselda (Kevin Mallon)

Posted By : ArlegZ | Date : 04 Mar 2011 10:49:03 | Comments : 3 |

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In 1740 Antonio Vivaldi travelled to Vienna in the hope of having at least one of his operas performed during the 1741 Carnival. The death of Charles VI in October 1740, however, and the subsequent closing of the theatres put paid to any such schemes. Vivaldi nevertheless decided to stay on in Vienna. Less than a year later he too was dead. What thoughts must have been racing through the mind of his famous protegee, the mezzo-soprano Anna Gir6, who with her sister Paolina had accompanied il prete rosso on many previous journeys, and who was now, as she walked slowly from the Spitaler Gottesacker where Vivaldi had been given a pauper's burial, bereft of not only her mentor but, as contemporary rumour had it, her lover?
Giro could have taken some comfort from the fact that the journey was not entirely wasted: Vivaldi's opera L'oracolo in Messenia was performed at the Karntnertortheater in the 1742 Carnival. Nevertheless it was a pitiful end for such a gifted violinist and one of the most influential composers of the first half of the eighteenth century.

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Performer:
Gualtiero, King of Tessaglia (Thessaly) - Giles Tomkins, Bass
Griselda, His Wife, the Queen of Thessaly - Marion Newman, Mezzo-soprano
Costanza, Daughter of Griselda and Gualtiero, Princess of Thessaly - Carla Huhtanen, Soprano
Roberto, Prince of Atene (Athens) - Lynne McMurtry, Mezzo-soprano
Corrado, Roberto's Brother -Jason Nedecky, Baritone
Ottone, Noble Knight of Thessaly - Colin Ainsworth, Tenor

Opera in Concert / Aradia Ensemble
Conductor — Kevin Mallon