/ world today news/ Rarely in our capital does a person leave a concert with the feeling that he was at an authentic European event created by great, dedicated, knowledgeable musicians. Such was the opening of the Twelfth Art of the Baroque Festival, an evening that lavishly revealed the delightful mysteries of Baroque rhetoric in the context of 18th-century Venetian carnival music.
It happened thanks to ensemble Il Pomo D’Oro with guide and conductor Zefira Valova and the soloists Roberto de Franceschi (oboe and flute) and especially the singer Anne Halenberg, as if born for the Baroque with the mission of an impressive mezzo-soprano voice overflowing with colors. Magnificent in their stylistic culture and vibrating vital instrumentalism, these musicians transported the audience into the atmosphere of the Venetian carnival held in 1729, with music appropriate to that time. The testimony of the British consul in Venice at that time is curious: “The whole city is excited by the contest between Farinelli and Faustina Bordoni, and this is the only topic of conversation. The lady is supported by the foreigners – mostly English and French, and the castrato has all the Italians on his side.” It was as if the excitement in the hall of the Sofia University was similar, which was caused by the vocal and instrumental pieces collected in the concert program by composers who gave voice to Italy/Venice at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. Three centuries later, we still can’t imagine how much music was created in this era. For example, one of the most rarely performed authors in our country, such as Geminiano Giacomelli (1692-1740), wrote 19 operas…Besides him, a more unknown name is that of Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, from whose opera “Adelaide” we heard two arias.
A little more information about the idea of this concert: it is a logical consequence of Hallenberg’s CD with Il Pomo D’Oro conducted by Stefano Montanari, released last year, with the title also discarded for the opening concert of a Sofia festival – “Carnival 1729 ”. Hallenberg, like most Baroqueists, is also a serious researcher of the history and practices hidden in the annals of this art of the past, but so well written in the present. In this case, this recall is essential, because every piece of the concert suggested authenticity, truthfulness, expertise, in addition to the fantastic instrumental and ensemble level and the remarkable sound of the vintage instruments. More music by Leonardo Leo, Baldassare Gallupi, Leonardo Vinci (not to be confused with artistic) Vivaldi and Nicola Porpora in the operatic and concert genres completed the soundscape of the evening.
Seven arias were performed by Ann Hellenberg with the expressive, affectively heated partnership of the sextet of Il Pomo D’Oro, led by Zefila Valova. Confessional art, marked with the emblem of absolute knowledge and sculpting of sound, timbre, stroke, tempo dynamics, pauses… In this luxurious context, Hellenberg was free to apply colors with an indomitable imagination; the complex interval invoice with an abundance of contrasting dynamics and with impressive velocities requiring virtuoso vocal technique was a necessary, requested platform for the incredible vocal gestures that the singer presented with pleasure and ease. To this the ensemble added a tense, affecting reading of two concertos for two violins (Valova and Lucia Giraudo), viola (Malia Dolores Fernández) and basso continuo by Baldassare Gallupi, and Roberto de Franceschi impelled the ensemble more intensely emotionally in the Concerto for flute and strings by Vivaldi, where the elegant intimacy of the flute in dialogue with the cello and harpsichord (basso continuo) in the person of Cristina Vidoni and Rosella Policardo in the slow movement was an inspired climax in the discoveries of the reading and the suggestion of the popular composition.
Even in our world, which has never seen or experienced anything, this category of musicians, capable of bringing the complex baroque worldview so convincingly to modern times, stands high in the endless list of performers’ signatures. And the great Emma Kirkby is also expected at the festival.
Ekaterina Docheva
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