Hasse: Siroe, re di Persia

I will start by saying that I am not a particular fan of counter tenors. With that said I am becoming a fan of Cencic. His voice is very impressive and often very beautiful. There is something very interesting about everything he does. The others in the cast are very good as well. The work itself, should be heard. It is always interesting to get to hear works that disappeared from the repertoire. The music is wonderful and this recording makes a great case for it. Decca is to be commended for recording it in a time where operatic recordings are so rare. Bravo!

Astonishing vocal virtuosity demonstrated by the singers as well as the now sadly forgotten composer, who was famous as the best vocal composer of his time. I believe this falls within the Galante era, a neglected late baroque-early classical period whose boundaries may not be firmly defined. This is a very long 160 min opera, and I still haven't heard all of it.

It is a fine performance of a major work of a lesser composer. It is good to hear such pieces as they explain why we rate Bach Handel Mozart etc so highly. Vocal fireworks without much musical or melodic underpinning.

I was originally going to rank this Siroe as four stars, although I was really thinking four-and-a-half, because at first the recitative sounded excessive to me, and, as reviewer Abert said, not very interesting. But after several re-listenings, I'm going to go with the full five stars, despite a couple of quibbles with two of the voices, which I'll mention in a moment. First, the positives: the arias are simply splendid. Each one is distinctive, psychologically apt, and musically brilliant. Then, the voices: The women, especially, handle their music with dexterity, power, and, again, psychological credibility. Here again I disagree with reviewer Abert, in that I find Julia Lezhneva's singing of Laodice to be right on target, and in fact lovely, with a kind of flirtatious and yet vulnerable lilt. I agree that Lauren Snouffer's singing of Arasse is gorgeous, and Mary-Ellen Nesi's Emira dynamic and powerful. As for the recitative, I discovered as I continued to listen, that it becomes more and more enjoyable, and in fact necessary to the enjoyment of the arias. As an experiment, I tried skipping over it in order to listen to the opera as a "Highlights" version, i.e., arias only. And this is where I realized that although the arias are wonderful by themselves, the recitatives form a kind of palate cleanser that transition away from one melody and build ineluctably toward the next, not only musically but also psychologically. I don't easily say things like this about recitative, since I don't have a fine ear for its shadings, but in this case, I found almost as much of interest in the recitatives as in the arias. Now, for the oddities in two of the male voices. In Cosroe's first aria, "Se il mio patrno amore," Juan Sancho's high notes at the ends of musical phrases tend to be shrieked rather than sung. I suppose that might have been deliberate, to indicate Cosroe's rage, but it's a bit irksome to the ear. As for Franco Fagioli's aria as Medarse, "Fra l'orror della tempesta," the low notes are the problem. Here he drops completely out of his CT head voice into a true baritone sound, which is very disconcerting. At first hearing, I grabbed my libretto to see what baritone character had entered the singing, and this change of register occurs so frequently throughout the aria that it sounds like a mezzo-baritone duet. I've since grown used to this disconcerting break in the voice, but only because I'm braced for it. And I must add that this break doesn't occur elsewhere in Fagioli's singing. On the whole, though, this recording is wonderful and has become one of my favorites.

I bought this recording at the same time as I bought a recording of Leonardo Vinci's "Siroe Re di Persia", both based on the same Metastasio libretto. I was curious to compare the two. What a difference fine singing can make. The singing (& orchestra) on the Vinci recording is so poor, dull & lackluster it's hard to judge the music. Here, the singing (& orchestra) are so good & passionate that the music shines. This is opera seria at its best. It seems anything Cencic is involved with it outstanding.

Eine Musik zum entspannen

Belíssima ópera. Muito rara. Para conhecedores.

Innanzitutto grazie a Decca per la bella edizione!I cantanti, il direttore e l'orchestra eseguono ad alto livello il Siroe dandoci modo di apprezzarla.La qualità della registrazione è di adeguato livello e ciò permette di assaporare compiutamente questa perla musicale e di bearci tra le note cantate da questi valevoli interpreti.Consiglio di ascoltare più volte questi dischi perché ci fanno scoprire che alcuni aspetti che da subito sembrano poco riusciti, sono invece quasi sempre opportuni....

I am no expert but I loved this recording. I was stunned by Julia Lezhneva’s crystal clear yet by no means crystal cold voice. Her coloraturas in the Act 1 aria “O placido il mare” is simply the most wonderful I have ever heard!I was quite disappointed that Medarse’s beautiful Act II aria ‘Ebbi da te la vita’ has been replaced here by another one, set to different music as well. It is track no. 23 on the first CD: Tu decidi del mio fato, son tuo dono i giorni miei; per te solo, o padre amato, voglio viver o morir. Io vivro se la mia vita e riparo alla tua sorte; io morro se la mia morte puo dar pace al tuo martir.I wasn’t going to mention it initially, because it could just be a problem with my CD player, but can anybody else hear a metallic tinkling sound here and there?

This opera by Hasse, with its extraordinary vocal and orchestral challenges, was lucky to have such an ideal cast, conductor and orchestra at its service. And how fortunate for those, in Europe who were able to see a live performance of it as well with much the same artists involved. All of the singers excelled, but the bravura aria sung by Mary-Ellen Nesi in the role of Emira near the end of the opera, but set to music by one of Hasse's contemporaries, Graun was particularly exciting. And, incidentally, the same aria, but with its original text, later included by Julia Lezhneva in her Decca album of arias by Graun.