Monteverdi : L’Orfeo

«…L’Orfeo thrives when given sufficient room to breathe, and its intellectual agenda benefits from a degree of sympathetic stylization. French director Pauline Bayle gives it just that in this spare yet visually striking 2021 coproduction mounted in the intimate surroundings of Paris’s Opéra Comique.

Musically, we are in the safest hands. Jordi Savall, conducting his Concert des Nations, leads a lean, immaculately executed reading that is cohesive, detailed and imaginative, eschewing extreme tempos as part of a deeper, more richly reflective interpretation. His vocal ensemble, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, forms the chorus and boasts some splendid individual voices as solo nymphs, shepherds and underworld spirits.

[Marc Mauillon’s] plangent tone and thoughtful way with the text is perfectly suited to the role, and his Byzantine decoration of the vocal line is mesmerizing. …He’s well matched by velvet-toned soprano Luciana Mancini, who captures the innocent charm of Euridice. She also displays commanding gravitas as La Musica, who oversees the opera from start to finish. » – OPERA NEWS

« The voices of the singers, solo and choral, are uniformly beautiful, and the period instruments of Le Concert des Nations are excellent. » – FANFARE

« Top honors go to Norwegian mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland, whose melting tones are heard in the roles of Proserpina and Speranza. Contralto Sara Mingardo is a rich-voiced Messenger, and Luciana Mancini is expressive and compelling of voice and appearance as Euridice and La Musica. » – AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE