VIVALDI : ORLANDO FINTO PAZZO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 7th of October 2007 at 3 pm

INTRODUCTION
REVIEW

ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678-1741)
Orlando finto pazzo [RV727], an opera in three acts (1714)
Orlando........................ Antonio Abete
Ersilla............................ Gemma Bertagnolli
Tigrinda......................... Marina Comparato
Origille.......................... Sonia Prina
Argillano....................... Manuela Custer
Grifone.......................... Martin Oro
Brandimarte.................. Marianna Pizzolato
Turin Theatre Chorus, Academia Montis Regalis
Alessandro De Marchi
(Opus 111 OP 30392)

Vivaldi's opera Orlando finto pazza (1714) is to be distinguished from Orlando furioso (1727). As I understand it, in the first one Orlando is feigning (finto) that he is a madman (pazzo), and in the second one he is furiously crazy (furioso), but I may be quite deluded. Anyway, the opera is based on Ariosto's poem (Orlando furioso), which also underlay two of Handel's operas (Orlando [1733] and Alcina [1735]), and one by Haydn (Orlando Paladino [1782]).

Now, we know that Handel wrote operas aplenty, but we do not hear much about Haydn's operas (more than 20), or Vivaldi's (18 have survived). Vivaldi's fame rests on his 500 concertos. I will not repeat here the wicked calumny that Vivaldi wrote one concert0 500 times. We only have to listen to his set of concertos entitled The Four Seasons to know that the pieces in it are as different as spring is from winter, and autumn from summer (though we may not be able to identify each one by name when we hear them!). The only Vivaldi opera I possess (in a box of three black discs, Hungaroton, 1978, his tricentenary year) is L'Olimpiade (The Olympiad). A couple of us get excited because its libretto is by Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782). But everyone else will certainly come alive when Spring from the Four Seasons strikes their ears.

I could tell you the storyline of all the other Orlando operas, but not this one. Angelica and Alcina are missing, for example. I cannot provide a libretto from Karadar, nor any notes from the NY Metropera archives. On the day the announcer will tell us the tale, if we can discipline ourselves to pay attention.

Nevertheless, I can direct you to Wikipedia for a synopsis, with a picture of the red priest himself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_finto_pazzo

This is a source that is despised by academics, but it can not be hopelessly useless, because someone has put some information about my work on the origin of the alphabet in it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets