Generally I tend to think the plot of an opera matters quite a lot. Even if it's stupid (and I don't necessarily think operatic plots are as frequently or extravagantly stupid as people sometimes make out) I do think it's important to know, at least roughly, what's going on. If some gorgeous singer is up there emoting his or her heart out, one ought to know what it's all about. But then I come across something like Handel's Floridante, and I wonder. I have, at last, made it all the way through the synopsis and so I think I vaguely know what happens now. But I only did so just this evening — whereas I've spent the last couple of weeks falling in love with the opera, oblivious to its bizarre intricacies of plot. I think with Handel, though, this is something you can get away with. The arias aren't about advancing the plot — they're about the expression of a given emotion. So you can comprehend and appreciate them while remaining all but clueless about the plot. In this way, I prevent myself from feeling guilty. It's not just a case "aren't they pretty sounds, who cares what they mean". I know what they mean. Handel makes sure we can hear what they mean. I just don't necessarily know how they fit into the mindboggling mess that is Floridante — prisons, poison, a Persian satrap, everyone in disguise, children swapped at birth, star-crossed lovers, treason, state politics and (almost) incest.
As I say — this is music well worth falling love with. I know I have. How is that I've been oblivious until now to the existence of Alan Curtis? You would think I'd have found him years ago and yet, no. But now I have discovered him and he's clearly a man after my own heart. This whole opera just bursts with baroque exquisiteness, it's Handel the way I dream of hearing it. Even at this stage of the Handel renaissance, Floridante remains a bit of an obscurity. This is its first full recording. It doesn't contain any of the big hits which show up on every second Handel Arias recital disc. So why does it sound so familiar. Partly, I suppose, because it's Handel, and Handel does always sound like himself. The arias follow familiar forms. We know what kind of accompaniment signals a storm metaphor, we know when someone's about to compare themselves to a bird and so on and so on. Still I don't think that's the whole explanation. I think there's something in Alan Curtis' approach which makes this opera seem like such an old, adored friend. He gives it such grandeur and such brilliance it simply doesn't seem possible that an opera like this could have languished in oblivion. Sometimes when you hear an obscurity, you can't help but think — there's a reason this is obscure. Not so here. It's not likely Floridante will enter the standard repertory any time soon. Of course it won't, and that's probably fair. But this recording could make you believe, for three hours at least, that it should.
And then there's Joyce. Have I mentioned lately how mad I am about Joyce DiDonato? Yes? Well there's more to come. Here she sings Elmira who, despite the title, is the real star of the opera. And not just because she's sung by Joyce, although that helps. A lot. I feel as if every single time I listen to Joyce sing, I hear something new to adore. With this recording, she has become one of those singers — the ones who make me sigh their name every few minutes while they're singing. The shimmer and sparkle and unearthly lightness in her voice take my breath away. I've known from the start that she was superb in Handel — the first time I heard her was her operatic duets with Patrizia Ciofi. What's special, though, is her adaptability within that repertoire. With Patrizia, she took all the male parts. Soldiers and princes. And was thoroughly persuasive throughout. Now as Elmira it's she who is the beleaguered heroine and she's just as vivid and just as beautiful, in an audibly different way — retaining all the mezzo richness and not a trace of the machismo. Her voice goes all the way from a deep golden lower register to a fairy floss top, seamless and agile and, well, just lovely. I think she's wonderful. This you can probably tell.
Enthralled as I am, I nevertheless have noticed the rest of the cast. They're hard to miss in fact. The impossible to type Marijana Mijanovic is excellent in the title role — a proper boyish contralto to match Joyce's pretty mezzo. She has the only two arias I recognised. "Bramo te sola" and "Se dolce m'era gia" both triggered my memory immediately. I knew I'd heard them somewhere but couldn't think where until I started mentally scanning my CD collection for Handel contraltos. Not Ewa. Nathalie! Both arias appear on Natalie Stutzmann's Handel disc, which I'd only listened to a few times — but Handel tends to stick with me, it seems. Sharon Rostorf-Zamir is our seconda donna, the adorable Rossane. Her pretty, fluttery sound took a little time to grow on me, but only a little. I don't know that it's a voice I would love in everything, and I wouldn't necessarily recognise it in a crowd, but for this role she's just the right choice. Roberta Invernizzi as Timante I liked straight away, but sadly she gets very little to sing. Vito Priante is brings nobility edged with lechery to the seriously badly behaved king Oronte. Oronte is the Woody Allen of Persia, creating all kinds of turmoil and trauma by attempting to marry his own adopted daughter. She, understandably enough, wants none of it — especially as he makes his move while she still thinks he's her biological father. Not clever. But Priante's singing makes him at least compelling, if not at all sympathetic.
I would like to create the illusion of credibility and impartiality by finding something to criticise about this Floridante, but I just can't. Maybe after I've lived with it a few months, or years, a flaw or two might emerge. This does happen sometimes with the things I fall in desperate love at first note with. For the moment though, there's nothing. I just love it, every moment of it.
