Different composers and the same librettist. Or when the nexus of a disc of arias is not the music but Metastasio, the great poet of the Baroque. His librettos were set to music in more than 800 operas. A figure that is not so exaggerated if you take into account that only one of his works was brought to the stage without respite by different composers, with the most successful version remaining as a reference at the end.
Thus, the canonical La clemenza di Tito could not be other than that of Mozart, but the Salzburg genius was not the only one who embraced what is considered one of the most accomplished librettos by Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782). The poet had received the music of more than forty composers for this title, among them Caldara, Hasse, Wagenseil, Gluck or Guglielmi. Nor did Vivaldi have the exclusivity of his L'Olimpiade, nor did Leonardo Vinci burn Artaserse's original after premiering it with Metastasio himself at his side in Rome.
The Roman dramatist who Hellenized his name was actually called Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi and he showed signs as a child as a genius capable of improvising and declaiming verses on any subject. That rapper of the Italian Baroque seduced the learned critic Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina with his poetic gift, who took him under his protection and turned him into Metastasio, the Greek equivalent of Trapassi. He instructed him and promoted his literary talents in the Roman salons, where authentic cockfights took place with other famous improvisers from all over Italy. Metastasio could improvise up to eighty stanzas in one sitting...
Well, reviewing the arias with his own texts from those operas that did not reach the top 40 at the time is what Philippe Jaroussky proposes in his new album Forgotten arias, which includes nine composers, in some cases little known – with the exception of Hasse–, who were somehow relegated to the tail of the hit lists without this meaning that they were mediocre. Even less so in Jaroussky's voice: his technique, coloratura and miraculous beauty can give the luster it deserves to an unpublished repertoire.
The French countertenor opens the Grans Veus cycle at the Palau de la Música Catalana on Monday with this project that brings him closer to composers such as Jommelli, Ferrandini, Bernasconi and Johann Christian Bach. On this occasion he is accompanied by the period instrument formation Le Concert de la Loge, directed by Julien Chauvin. The French master and violinist founded it in 2015 seeking to revive a fundamental link in the musical history of his country: Le Concert de la Loge Olympique, that is, the orchestra created in 1783 by the Comte d'Ogny and which was of the best in Europe at the time... (She is the one who commissioned the Paris Symphonies from Haydn).
