Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini - Giulio Caccini: L'Euridice (2013)

Product Description

More than four hundred years separate us from Caccini's Euridice, and it is this that constitutes the greatest obsta-cle to our understanding of this first dramatic event to combine text and music on a stage. Many things have hap-pened in the past four centuries, events that distance us from the stylistic meaning of L'Euridice, making it almost incomprehensible. But there is a means that can put us back in touch with a primordial and primitive truth. Cacci-ni, like Peri, contextualises and makes concrete the necessi-ty of individual and subjective expression, through the human voice. Both of them theorise, invent, and demand that theatrical imitation be made visible through the indi-vidual contribution of the performer. They theorise and demand passion [l'affetto] as the primary condition that legitimises this new style - for it is a question of style even before that of a new kind of composition.' - Rinaldo Alessandrini
Review

One of the very first unions of text and music that could truly be called an opera, this prologue and single act by Caccini, first put on in 1600, is brought to stylish life by Rinaldo Alessandrini and his forces. The recording was made during live performances of "L'Euridice" last summer in Austria, and the vibrancy is palpable. --New York Times Classical Playlist, Zachary Woolfe

Alex Ross Recommended CD Pick --therestisnoise.com, Alex Ross, May 2014

Whether or not the Caccini is inferior to Peri's version, it has a great deal of dramatic power and is certainly worth listening to, especially when it is sung and played as well as it is here. Rinaldo Alessandrini and the Concerto Italiano have given us many fine recordings, particularly of the Monteverdi Madrigals, and this CD does not disappoint. --Wholenote, June 2014