Alessandro Stradella Consort, Esteban Velardi - Stradella: Moro per amore (1993)

Alessandro Stradella was, along with Henry Purcell and Heinrich von Biber, among the most striking and idiosyncratic composers of the late seventeenth century. He is known principally for his cantatas on sacred subjects such as "La Susanna" and "San Giovanni Battista," which prefigure Handel's oratorios, and from which Handel borrowed freely. Stradella's musical eccentricities were paralleled by his irregular life. A member of the minor nobility, he ran through his inheritance while young, and thereafter supplemented his musical earnings by questionable financial dealings that incurred the anger of influential families. These obliged him to flee Rome for Venice in 1677. At Venice he seduced the mistress of a patrician, who in consequence sent assassins after him. He fled again to Turin, then to Genoa, where he was finally klled in 1682. Responsibility for his murder has never been convincingly assigned. Stradella's life resembled a melodrama, and has indeed been made the subject of an opera by Flotow.
"Moro per amore" (A Moor for love, or alternately, A fool for love) is not a cantata but a full-fledged opera, and a grand one at that. The libretto by Flavio Orsini, duke of Bracchiano, is alternatively titled "Il Floridoro." It was composed as a private diversion for that nobleman's friends in the Accademia degli Arcadi, a semi-secret learned society typical of the age, in which its author held the anagrammatic deckname Filosinavoro.
While it is not Shakespearean in its gravitas, the story reminds us why so many of Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies had Italian settings - such Italian comedies of manners as this one had been written years before Shakespeare, and continued to be for many years after his time, as this one was. The interplay between the "downstairs" and "upstairs" characters is a staple, the servants often being used for low comedy, as for example Juliet's nurse in "Romeo and Juliet." The comparable character in "Moro per amore," Lindora, is given some of the most resplendent singing; the aria "Muta stil" is a real showpiece.
Indeed, the music of "Moro per amore" challenges all its singers. It was intended for a cast of virtuosi: two female sopranos (Eurinda and Lucinda); a castrato soprano (Fiorino); a female contralto (Lindora), a castrato contralto (Feraspe/Floridoro), a tenor (Filandro) and a bass (Rodrigo). Here the rôle of Lindora is sung by the male contralto Marco Lazzara, that of Feraspe/Floridoro by female contralto Valeria Matacchini, and Fiorino by female soprano Maria Grazia Liguori. Roberta Invernizzi sings Eurinda, Silvia Piccollo is Lucinda, Filandro is Marco Beasley, and Rodrigo, Riccardo Ristori. The cast are all more than competent, but outstanding performances are delivered by Invernizzi as Eurinda, and especially by Lazzara as Lindora. Esteban Velardi ably conducts the Alessandro Stradella Consort in the sinfonie and ritornelle. This 3-disc set under the off-brand Bongiovanni label is a very fine recording of some great music.