Arias for Giovanni Rubinelli

Description

The famous music historian Charles Burney counted him among the three great castrato voices of the late 18th century: Giovanni Rubinelli (1753-1829). At a time when the era of opera seria and castrati was drawing to a close, Rubinelli was one of its last great protagonists. Many composers wrote specifically for his voice, which was not the high soprano voice preferred by castrati, but that of a contralto. This CD traces Rubinelli's artistic career: at the age of 16, he made his debut in Ludwigsburg in Antonio Sacchini's Calliroe; in 1778, he sang at the inauguration of La Scala in Milan in Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta; and in the late 1780s, he performed in London, notably in Handel's "Julius Caesar." Countertenor Filippo Mineccia sensitively and virtuosically paints the historical portrait of a singer who embodies the evolution of opera, from the virtuosity of the castrato stars to the sensitive arias of the new simplicity of Gluck's operatic reform.