Orféo

Description

Considered the first opera in history, L'Orfeo by Monteverdi, created in 1607 at the Ducal Palace of Mantua, is a unique masterpiece in its way of thinking and representing music that continues to inspire the greatest. Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, at the heart of his ensemble I Gemelli, signs his third recording for naïve with this lush reading refocused around the voice, which exalts both the aesthetic inherited from the Renaissance and the modernity of a virtuosic score. This production, acclaimed on the stages of Paris and Toulouse at the end of 2019, is unique in being conducted "from the voice" by the tenor, who embodies the title role while directing singers and instrumentalists. Emiliano Gonzalez Toro showcases his care – for himself but also for the ten soloists surrounding him – of richly ornamented vocal lines that are contrasted in their dynamics and climates, always maintaining tension between the narration and the characters' interventions.
From this fragmentation inherent in Striggio's poem, which is also a model of proportions and balance for this favola in musica, the performers gathered here draw mobility and creativity, thanks to which recurrence is never repetition and the pastoral scenes enhance moments of introspection such as "Rosa del ciel" (act I), the famous "Tu se’ morta" (act II), or Orpheus's arrival in the Underworld in act III ("Scorto da te"). A very inventive continuo in its choices of timbres and accompaniment enriches the vocal and instrumental texture, dominated by the viols and supplemented by a ceterone from 1600 from the collections of the Musée de la Musique in Paris. This liberates from the myth a true festive dimension, a powerful divine breath.