Disc 1
1.  Sinfonia 00:06:16
2.  Venga pur, Signor padrone (Frontino, Marchese, Lisetta, Costanza) 00:05:18
3.  Lisetta, che hai a dirmi (Marchese, Lisetta, Frontino, Costanza, Cavaliere) 00:02:55
4.  Senza un soldo al suo comando (Pasquale) 00:03:02
5.  Son dieci anni che giro (Pasquale, Frontino, Marchese) 00:05:34
6.  E perché all'amor mio costui s'oppone (Pasquale, Frontino, Sergente) 00:05:29
7.  Intermezzo 00:01:30
8.  Il caso è brutto assai! (Costanza, Marchese) 00:01:08
9.  Sol per te, mio diletto tesoro (Marchese) 00:05:08
10. Ah, temo che l'amore (Costanza, Lisetta, Barone, Marchese) 00:01:12
11. Ahi, la testa! (Pasquale, Barone, Lisetta, Frontino, Marchese, Costanza) 00:05:02
12. Ma questo che significa (Lisetta, Frontino, Pasquale, Barone, Marchese, Costanza) 00:02:12
13. Come! Cosa! Questa ragazza amabile (Frontino) 00:03:52 

Disc 2
1.  Pasqual, ci siamo (Pasquale, Lisetta) 00:03:26
2.  Parla, Lisetta mia (Pasquale, Lisetta) 00:04:23
3.  Oh, vuoi star fresco affè (Lisetta, Marchese, Costanza, Barone) 00:01:02
4.  Deh, in questo core (Costanza) 00:03:17
5.  Che intese dire! (Barone, Pasquale, Lisetta, Cavaliere, Frontino) 00:02:06
6.  Ah, dov'è chi ha l'ardimento (Lisetta) 00:05:05
7.  Mi voglio divertire con costui (Frontino, Pasquale) 00:01:03
8.  Se a far di qua un bel scampo (All) 00:15:22 

Pasquale - Baurzhan Anderzhanov
Barone - Carlo Feola
Costanza - Michella Antinucci
Il Cavaliere / Un sergente - Daniele Adriani
Lisetta - Carolina Lippo
Il Marchese - Antonio Gares
Frontino - Davide Bartolucci

Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini
Giuseppe Montesano - Conductor 

Rec. at: Jesi, Teatro P.G. Pergolesi, 22nd September 2018,
XVIII Pergolesi Spontini Festival

Gaspare Spontini's "Le Metamorfosi di Pasquale," was premiered in Venice in 1802. This one-act farce, on a libretto by Giuseppe Foppa was to be his last work for the Italian stage. After its debut, in fact, the young composer moved on to Paris and then to Berlin and the score of this work was lost until 2016, when it was unearthed in the library of the Dukes of Ursel in Belgium. This 2-album release is a world premiere recording of a Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini di Jesi and Fondazione Teatro La Fenice di Venezia coproduction. Baurzham Anderzhanov stars in the title role, alongside other impressive soloists including Carlo Feola, Michela Antenucci, Daniele Adriani, and others.

Although the title of the work might suggest a certain philosophical heaviness, this is not the case: the metamorphoses refer to the usual goings-on to be found in a farse. Pasquale, a ne’er-do-well servant, who has been seeking his fortune abroad, returns to his hometown, in order to woo his ex-fiancée, Lisette. Falling asleep under a tree he becomes prey to a local nobleman who, wanting to avoid detection from the authorities, exchanges his clothes with Pasquale’s, who in turn intends to profit from the fact that he is now the nobleman. Later, when his disguise is uncovered, he seeks to escape by disguising himself once more, this time as woman. At the end of the opera he sadly, but gracefully, accepts that he has lost Lisette. The metamorphoses thus go no further than a couple of costume changes and Pasquale’s resignation to losing Lisette. It is populated by the usual array of stereotypes, associated with the genre, ones that we have become familiar with through the work of Rossini – the master of the genre and in whose hands it was to reach its maturity, and to whom a comparison is almost inevitable. ---operawire.com

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Disc 1
1.Parte Prima: Sinfonia — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra	3:22
2.Parte Prima: Introduzione — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra	6:28
3.Parte Prima: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 3:11
4.Parte Prima: Cavatina a tre (Conte, Giannina, Lisetta)	3:09
— Gianpiero Ruggeri, Johanna Hansen, Charlotte Zeiher, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra
5.Parte Prima: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra  2:51
6.Parte Prima: Aria (Giannina)	5:24
— Johanna Hansen, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra
7.Parte Prima: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra  2:18
8.Parte Prima: Rondo (Valerio) 6:40
— Patrizio Saudelli, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra
9.Parte Prima: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 1:27
10.Parte Prima: Aria (Dottore) — Guido Boesi, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 3:37
11.Parte Prima: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 1:53
12.Parte Prima: Quintetto (Rosimene, Valerio, Giannina, Dottore, Conte)  8:31
— Paola Antonucci, Patrizio Saudelli, Johanna Hansen, Guido Boesi, Gianpiero Ruggeri, Wilhelm Keitel
13.Parte Prima: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 1:52
14.Parte Prima: Aria (Conte) — Gianpiero Ruggeri, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 3:29
15.Parte Prima: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 1:50
16.Parte Prima: Finale I — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 11:49

Disc 2
1.Parte Seconda: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 1:48
2.Parte Seconda: Duetto (Conte, Dottore) 3:54
— Gianpiero Ruggeri, Guido Boesi, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra
3.Parte Seconda: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 1:49
4.Parte Seconda: Aria (Lisetta)  3:06
— Charlotte Zeiher, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra
5.Parte Seconda: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 1:02
6. Parte Seconda: Duetto (Rosimene, Giannina)  5:03
— Paola Antonucci, Johanna Hansen, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra
7.Parte Seconda: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 3:11
8.Parte Seconda: Aria (Cavaliere)  3:16
— Jose Medina, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra
9.Parte Seconda: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 1:13
10.Parte Seconda: Aria (Rosimene) 2:32
— Paola Antonucci, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra
11.Parte Seconda: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 4:36
12.Parte Seconda: Sestetto (Rosimene, Valerio, Giannina, Dottore, Conte, Cavaliere) 7:35
— Paola Antonucci, Patrizio Saudelli, Johanna Hansen, Guido Boesi, Gianpiero Ruggeri, Jose Medina
13.Parte Seconda: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra  1:54
14.Parte Seconda: Aria (Giannina) — Johanna Hansen, Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 6:23
15.Parte Seconda: Recitativo — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra 0:51
16.Parte Seconda: Finale II — Wilhelm Keitel, Putbus Festival Orchestra  10:50

Johanna Hansen (Giannina, soprano)
Giampiero Ruggeri (Conte Brontolone)
Guido Boesi (Dottore Mangiacarte, baritone)
Patrizio Saudelli (Valerio, tenor)
Paola Antonucci (Rosimene, soprano)
José Medina (Cavaliere del Ciufolo, tenor)
Charlotte Zeiher (Lisetta, soprano)
Putbus Festival Orchestra
Wilhelm Keitel (conductor)

Which is best? To see one opera a hundred times or a hundred operas once each? Or, to make a less extreme example, if you are a keen and experienced opera-goer with at least 100 visits to an opera house to your credit, how many different operas did you see in your last 100 visits? 10? 20? Would "not more than 30" be near the mark? And why not? The masterworks are inexhaustible and no other art form contains so many variables.

But now what about this. You are a keen and experienced cinema-goer with over a hundred visits to the cinema behind you. How many different films did you see in your last 100 visits? 100? I’d guess at least 90.

What’s different about the two things? Why do opera-lovers mull and chew over different interpretations of their favourite roles while a cinema-lover, having seen a favourite actor in a new role, is already hankering after his next interpretation. OK, let’s not generalise too much, there are some films that people see again and again, but not so many as there are operas. Still, I think it’s fair to say that nobody feels cheated if they see a decently paced, decently directed, decently acted film, and at the end of it don’t remember very much. They have been entertained, nobody intended anything more high-brow than that, and the next time they go to the cinema it will be to see another film like it.

Well, the point of this preamble is that in early 19th Century Italy people went to the opera the way people of the next century went to the cinema. When the Roman audience assembled in the Teatro Pallacorda in 1796 to hear the first opera – or, rather, "Farce with Seven Characters" – by the young Neapolitan composer Gaspare Spontini, they went, not to a holy temple but to an evening’s entertainment, and as long as it was decently paced, decently melodious and decently sung, that was enough. They didn’t necessarily expect to hear it again, the next time they would go to hear something else. In fact, the next year Spontini was invited back to Rome, not to repeat the same piece, but to bring out a new one. (Spontini, of course, later wrote one of opera’s near misses, La Vestale, not so long ago brought back to life by Muti at La Scala).

So where does that leave us today? Is there any point in cluttering up the house with two CDs that you’ll probably enjoy, but won’t need to hear again? Well, since the Arte Nova price is about on a level with an evening out at the cinema, then I’d say yes, why not, and you can always flog it at a car boot sale when you’ve finished with it. And, as ephemera goes, the opera is a classy product. Spontini’s handling of the orchestra was a cut above the average – hear the woodwind writing in the trio Gli augelli garruli or the flute obbligato to Giannina’s aria Dolce auretta lusinghiera – and he was already a dab hand at keeping the characters well-differentiated in the ensembles. It does everything a comic opera is expected to do – but don’t think you’re going to get Mozart or even Rossini.

If you’re not going to hear it again perhaps the performance does not matter too much, but be assured that it is well recorded and excellently conducted. Keitel really knows how to pace a comic opera, rattling the recitatives off like anything and keeping the ensembles on their toes. There are some excellent wind soloists in the orchestra. The singers? They’re a bit of a mixed bunch. Johanna Hansen as Giannina is named as a soprano and I’ve dutifully called her that in the details above, but the range of the part is for mezzo and she certainly sounds like a mezzo, and a fairly jaded, chesty one at that. She rather struggles with her Italian, almost falling behind the rhythm in the faster moments, and unable to bite the words. The gentler aria Dolce auretta suggests that she may be worth hearing in different music.

There are two other sopranos and they get an aria each. Charlotte Zeiher is a light soprano, lively in recitatives, but her aria reveals problems with high notes, which take on a wide vibrato and sometimes come out sharp. Paola Antonucci is worth watching; a bright, forward voice with plenty of body. She is sometimes reckless with it but she has a lot of character and her aria is perhaps the one thing hear I’d hear again.

Both baritones are good, typical Italian comic singers. Of the tenors Patrizio Saudelli aspirates his runs very noticeably and has some fairly excruciating high notes, which go right up to a top C sharp. José Medina is much pleasanter on the ear and may be worth looking out for.

The booklet has a useful note on Spontini and a very sketchy summary of the plot in English, French and German. The libretto itself is in Italian only and if you can read it then it’ll lead you quite a dance. Minor alterations of words and sentences are frequent, and whole chunks of recitative – even whole scenes – are printed but not performed. On the other hand Rosimene sings an aria that isn’t printed here. Are performers and printers working from two different versions of the opera?

I’m not sure what sort of recommendation this all adds up to, since it depends who you are. I hope it will be clear from what I’ve said above whether this is for you or not. ---Christopher Howell, musicweb-international.com

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1. CD1
2. CD2

Agnes - Lucilla Udovich
Irmengard - Dorothy Dow
Der junge Heinrich - Alvaro Cordova
Herzog von Burgund - Franco Corelli
Der Kaiser - Giangiacomo Guelfi
Philipp von Hohenstaufen - Francesco Albanese
Heinrich der Löwe - Anselmo Colzani
Der Erzbischof - Arnold Van Mill
Theobald - Valiano Natali
Erster Richter - Lido Pettini
Zweiter Richter - Raniero Rossi
Ein Herold - Jorge (Giorgio) Algorta

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Vittorio Gui – conductor

Agnese von Hohenstaufen is a three-act historical-romantic opera by Gaspare Spontini. Spontini was an Italian opera composer who studied with Piccini. He found his greatest outlet writing for the Paris Opera under Napoleon, creating large scale works with historical subjects and political significance. He also spent some time in Dresden, and this opera represents an attempt to integrate German Romantic elements with French neo-Classicism. Spontini worked for years on Agnese. It was his final opera, and he considered it his greatest achievement. The setting is twelfth century France, and concerns political intrigue, a daring prison escape, and a secret, forbidden, romance and marriage. In this opera, Spontini created formal organization on a grand and monumental scale, and intense romantic drama. He subordinates the solo arias to large-scale organization, and tries to subsume them within extensive ensemble forms. With an oversize orchestra he writes massive instrumental and vocal tableaux. Agnese von Hohenstaufen premiered in Berlin at the Konigliches Opernhaus on June 12, 1829. The libretto was written by Ernst Raupach. It was revived twice in the twentieth century, and is considered to be a significant achievement in early-nineteenth century opera, because of its success at integrating various operatic trends. ---Rita Laurance, Rovi

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