Roberta Invernizzi - "Haendel in Italy" - Cantates italiennes (2011)

For the second Glossa Portrait release the spotlight falls upon a singer who, since the 1990s, has been excelling in broad swathes of Italian Baroque music, whose qualities had remained under-performed and under-appreciated until musicians of sufficient quality and understanding of such repertoire had emerged. The soprano Roberta Invernizzi has been one such musician, gifted with an ability to master the technical, expressive and temperamental challenges set by composers of that time. Many are the recordings of the music of Vivaldi, Monteverdi and Alessandro Scarlatti graced by Invernizzi’s sparkling presence (and she has also added a scintillating theatrical verve to many of the incursions into Neapolitan opera buffa in the company of Antonio Florio).

Given Roberta Invernizzi’s notable successes on stage (and on recordings) in portraying some of Handel’s more famous female characters from the operas of his maturity, it was an inspired choice of Fabio Bonizzoni to involve the Milanese singer in his series of Le Cantate Italiane di Handel, and Invernizzi appeared on no less than five of the seven discs in that greatly-admired series. This two-disc Portrait album draws on those recordings to highlight the delicious characterizations of Invernizzi in Handel’s vivid and visceral portrayals of nymphs and goddesses such as Diana, Cloris, Amarilis, Lidia and Fili, Arcadian characters one and all but nonetheless human in personality. Alongside the opportunity to experience the “feminine” viewpoint explored through arias from Handel’s Italian Cantatas there is a chance also to enjoy with this new release the instrumental qualities of players found in Fabio Bonizzoni’s La Risonanza.