Monteverdi: Orfeo

The reclamation of the music of the high Italian baroque by native singers and instrumentalists has been one of the glories of recent developments in the making of early music. Monteverdi has been one of the prime beneficiaries, with two rival Italian ensembles, Cavina's La Venexiana and Rinaldo Alessandrini's Concerto Italiano, vying for supremacy in the great madrigal books. Alessandrini's Orfeo, on Naïve, has already been announced for the autumn schedules, but La Venexiana have managed to bring out their deluxe limited edition (4,000 individually numbered copies of a hardback book, with essays in English and the libretto in Italian and English translation) to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Orfeo's first performance, in Mantua in 1607. Cavina takes a grand yet earthy approach to this courtly drama, rooted in the Italian text and the circumstances in which it was first performed. The brass sinfonias evoking the journey through Hades have rarely sounded more portentous, while the pastoral scenes in Thrace dance with a vernacular folksiness that will delight Monteverdians. The singing is variable, but Mirko Guadagnini's virile, baritonal Orfeo beguiles in his bewitching song to Charon, the Stygian boatman.