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When commissioned to write an opera as part of King Louis XIV's wedding celebrations, Francesco Cavalli and librettist Francesco Buti came up with Ercole Amante, a work that compares the French monarch and his bride, Maria Theresa , to the legendary hero and Ebe, goddess of BELLEZZA.
In this version of the story, however, ERCOLE is already married (to DEINAIRA) and is a total jerk, even attempting to rape his own son's girlfriend.
The opera was a flop when it was finally presented, after two years' delay, and Cavalli returned in frustration to Venezia.
The opera has had a handful of revivals in modern times, but the Nederlandse Opera production, comes closest to the spirit and intention of the original team.
The deep royal pockets provided a larger than usual orchestra and chorus, which Cavalli's score uses to great effect in the prologue and finale.
The Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera, under the leadership of Ivor Bolton, realize all the colors and drama of the score, which also includes such features of Cavalli's mature style as a sleep scene, sensuous duets and intense laments on descending bass-line patterns.
The production also requires a stage director able to balance the work's humour, tragic moments and divine interference without loading the stage with sight gags and cheap attention-grabbers.
David Alden attempts to recreate the energy, buzz and lavish scale of the first performance with some grandiose and spectacular scenic effects.
While some of the stage action is puzzling, Baroque references are appropriately, even wittily, employed.
The goddess GIUNONE descends on a light fixture, while NETTUNO rises from the sea via trapdoor.
When the music is powerful and the singer affecting, Alden wisely backs off.
Best of all Paul Steinberg's colorful, geometric sets is the seaside tower where ERCOLE has imprisoned his son: gigantic tropical fish and a tentacled anemone float across the stage in an elaborate radio-controlled dance that Louis XIV would have loved.
Constance Hoffman's costumes are similarly eclectic (with the chorus of dead people especially striking), highlighted by a set of plastic, muscled body pieces that Hercules dons, assembling himself into an action-figure in front of our eyes.
In one of the better rounds of DVD releases, Naxos offers five well-done, elaborate adaptations of exceptional works that rank among the more entertaining and effective in this cycle of such releases.
This was the first time any of us covered "L'Ercole Amante", an underseen, underrated Francesco Cavalli work that was actually commissioned for the marriage of the Sun King, Louis XIV and Marie-Therese.
The title character is a hero in a struggle over the future and how a marriage might just have on it. Experimental in its time, Constance Hoffman's costumes are exceptionally clever in bringing out the daring of the work back in the 1660s!
I really liked this one and it deserves rediscovery more than just about any other Opera I have seen in many years.
The 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image in all cases is better than usual, save Tristan, which is a little softer and plagued with motion blur than expected though the stage production still looks good too.
I was surprised in how good the others looked with fine color and more image stability than usual for such productions.
Sadly, the anamorphically enhanced DVDs for Tristan and ballo are unusually weak, which made ballo a big surprise in comparison when the Blu-ray looked so much better.
That leaves Ercole the best looking of the DVD versions covered here and one of the best of the Blu-rays.
The sound on the Blu-rays are all DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mixes except ballo in PCM 5.1, with PCM 2.0 Stereo as secondary tracks in all cases, while the DVDs have DTS 5.1.
The DTS on the DVDs are pretty good, but hit a point of strain often that the lossless DTS and PCM 5.1 mixes do not, which makes for interesting sonic comparisons.
None of the Blu-ray versions had the kind of breakout soundfields I was expecting, but they were really good just the same.
Extras in all editions and formats include booklets inside their respective cases, while all discs also add Illustrated Synopsis and Cast Galleries.
Minotaur repeats its DVD documentary Myth Is Universal, Ercole adds separate behind-the-scenes pieces with star Luca Pisaroni and Johannette Zomer (who has multiple roles) & a making of making of featurette, Giovanni adds a single interview piece with Stage Director Lluis Pasqual, Actor Carlos Alvarez & Conductor Victor Pablo Perez, while Tristan has its own making of featurette "Kinder, macht was Neues!" and the interesting Conductor Cameras option to watch Peter Schneider in action the whole way through.
It was 1659, Louis XIV of France was to marry Marie-Therese, and Mazarino invited Francesco Cavalli to compose an opera in honour of the event.
The result, "Ercole amante".
A modern staging of it can be seen on an Opus Arte DVD, which holds a 2009 production from Het Musiektheater Amsterdam, conducted by Ivor Bolton.
This opera is of great historical interest, standing as it does between the first "fabula con musica" (as opera was called when it was invented just about 1600) and the opera seria, which catered more to the star singers than to the drama.
The framework is the royal wedding, while the rest of the opera tells the story of how Hercules (Luca Pisaroni) wants the captive princess Iole (Veronica Cangemi), despite the devotion of his wife Deianira (Anna Maria Panzarella) and the intervention of the goddesses Juno (Anna Bonitatibus) and Venus (Wike de Brummelstroete).
I watched most of Act I, found I was unable to follow what was going on, switched to the 10-minute illustrated synopsis, found I understood about 1/4 of the plot, and settled back to enjoy the music and production on their own merits.
Classicists and drama majors will instantly recognize that the plot was inspired by Euripides' "ERCOLE FURIOSO"
The director hedged his bets.
In one of those unimaginative bonus features, we are told that although "Ercole amante" is a tragic opera, it still has its humorous moments.
Of course, there is some intended comic relief built into the libretto.
But the director decided to make ERCOLE into a clown -- this, despite the fact that he is supposed to represent Louis XIV!
So authenticity is blown to the winds right there.
For the most part, the costumes and scenery are those that might have been seen back in 1662, when it finally reached the stage.
But the director thought it would be hysterically funny to show ERCOLE with two over-sized 6-packs of Budweiser, another character with a modern backpack, and other anachronisms that are just silly if not stupid.
Worse still, the choreography (as is the case with at least two productions of Rameau operas) is strictly of the mid-20th-century frug, twist, and sudden muscle contortion sort that is as un-baroque as can be.
The dance of the mummies, while a little too modern, does have a creepy effect as the gauzy dancers totter to the music.
When Hercules first appears, he steps into high platform boots, a long blond wig and a plastic muscle shell, all of which make him look exactly like a particular rock star and/or a wrestler from half a century back.
Here, the character is sung by a bass-baritone who finds some of the low notes below his range and who can do little acting while locked in that costume (which, he tells in an interview, was like a sauna).
The opera runs just over three hours, the bonus material just over an hour.
The picture is in wide-screen format, and the subtitles are in six languages.
My tolerance for 17th century opera is generally low, but even I can appreciate the value in an underappreciated composer like Francesco Cavalli.
One of the most celebrated composers of early Baroque Opera, he's mostly been forgotten today.
Out of his thirty-five operas, only "La Calisto" is performed with any kind of regularity.
De Nederlandse Opera's new video release of Ercole Amante is in fact only the second recording the work has ever received (a long out-of-print CD conducted by Michel Corboz was the first).
Thankfully, this is an excellent (if bizarre) production of the opera, as well done as we're ever likely to see it. Composed for the occasion of the marriage of Louis XIV of France, (there is a lengthy prologue paying tribute to this glorious monarch), Ercole is one of those strange operas where there is so much going on that the action is more confusing than a Lars van Tier film.
Boiled down to its most basic elements, the plot concerns the great hero Ercole (Hercules), who is in love with the captive princess Iole.
There are two major problems therein: firstly, she's in love with his son Hyllo, and, secondly, Ercole is already married.
After the usual "she's betrayed me, no she hasn't" and "he's dead, no he's not, yes he is, actually no he's not" entanglements common to the era, Ercole is accidentally killed via a poisoned robe by his betrayed wife Deianira and packed off to Heaven, where, because he is a great hero if not a particularly nice guy, he gets to marry the goddess Bellezza.
On top of all that, throw in ever clichéd devise of Operas Buffa and Seria that you can think of. Warring goddesses?
Check. Cheeky servants? Check.
Magic spells? Check.
A visit to the underworld for the usual vengeful ghosts? Check.
A storm at sea which ends with a countertenor getting eaten by a fish? Check and double check.
With so much to deal with, it's little surprise that David Alden's production fails to make much sense of the proceedings.
While never quite as radical as his twin brother Christopher's, Alden's productions have always have resulted in a good amount of head scratching, in a word: the "huh?!" factor.
Since Ercole has the "huh?!" factor build in, it's a perfect vehicle for Alden's insanity, and he plays up the ridiculousness.
This is a world where anguished queens in 17th century finery stand next to servants dressed as 70s-style pimps, where dignified, ethereal goddesses suddenly break out into Bollywood dance moves, and of course, the obligatory squadron of giant dancing babies.
The madness onstage shouldn't work as well as it does, but even if it's not very cohesive it's certainly entertaining.
Alden's fine cast is up to the challenge of whatever he throws at him.
Luca Pisaroni, in the title role, is most challenged: when Ercole first appears, feeling lovesick and down in the dumps, he is shown to be a perfectly normal man, but over the course of his first scene, he puts on a costume consisting of a plastic muscle suit, platform shoes and a long blond wig, in a look apparently modeled after Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Pisaroni spends the rest of the opera stomping around onstage in this constricting garb, and not only pulls it off with flair but also brings a lyrical, darkly-hued baritone to the bullying title character.
His death scene is a fearless example of commitment, as Pisaroni lurches and crawls about the stage smearing himself with blood and singing an endless monologue of anguish before finally keeling over.
Magnificent: I suspect he would be an excellent Don Giovanni.
He is backed up by an exquisite supporting cast, which includes Baroque specialists like Umberto Chiummo, Mark Tucker and Johannette Zomer, all of who do excellent double duty in a series of cameo roles.
Veronica Canegmi suffers an unflattering make-up job but uses her light soprano exquisitely as Iole.
Likewise Jeremy Ovenden is shoved into a costume making him look like an obese 12-year-old, but sings ravishing as Hyllo.
Anna Maria Panzarelli is the excellent Deianira, the distant ancestor of Countess Almaviva.
Mezzos Anna Bonitatibus and Wilke te Brummelstroete deserve their divinity as Venere (Venus) and Giunone (Juno), who respectively aid and foil Ercole at every turn.
Bonitatibus is especially noteworthy, her darkly colored voice highlighting the danger lurking behind every word the goddess utters.
Marlin Miller is fussy and indistinct as the comic servant Licco, but countertenor Tim Mead is so funny his sidekick the Page that it makes one wish he doesn't get killed off halfway through the opera. (He's the aforementioned fish food.)
Since there are several ballets written into the opera (composed by the French King's court composer Lully rather than Cavalli), the dancers in this opera are nearly as important as the singers.
The choreography of Jonathan Lunn and the fine dancers, who are asked to perform everything from 17th century court dances to acrobatic flips to Mark Morris-style modernism, are definitely worth a mention.
Also notable are the effective sets of Paul Steinberg and the endlessly inventive costumes of Constance Hoffmann.
The Nederlandse Opera Chorus and the Concerto Köln also provide generally fine work, led by the expert baton work of Baroque specialist Ivor Bolton. More good news in is the packaging. Opus Arte usually has excellent presentational skills, and this is no exception.
The menus, picture and sound are all beautiful. There's also, as I've come to expect from Opus Arte, several interesting bonus features, including a half-hour behind the scene feature, which features plenty of rehearsal footage and interviews with many of the singers, Alden and several members of the production team. Also included are two documentary "meet the singer" profiles on Zimmer and Pisaroni, who comes off as a charmingly affable fellow unafraid of playing with his dog in the rain on the day of a performance (a refreshing change from the hypochondria that most singers, myself included, seem to fall into.) These bonus features are the cherry on top of the sundae; combine them with the strength of the performers, the bizarre wit of the production and the rarity of the opera to make a guaranteed recommendation.
Originally commissioned by Cardinal Mazarin to celebrate the marriage of the "Sun King," Louis XIV, and Marie Therese, Cavalli's "L'Ercole Amante" took two years to complete and was first performed at the Tuileries in Paris, France, on 7 February 1662.
It is Cavalli's only opera written for Paris.
With an Italian libretto by Francesco Buti based on Sophocles' The Trachiniae and the Book IX of Ovid's Metamorphoses, "Ercole Amante" tells the story of Ercole (Hercules) (Luca Pisaroni) who lusts after Iole (Veronica Cangemi), but she hates him for having killed her father.
She instead is in love with Ercole's son Hyllo (Hyllus) (Jeremy Ovenden), who in turn is in love with her.
Ercole, finding this out, wants to kill his son, but he relents, only after Iole agrees to marry him.
Ercole instead imprisons his son in a high dungeon.
Meanwhile, Ercole's wife and Hyllo's mother, Deianira (Anna Maria Panzarella) sees Hyllo, in despair, plunge to the depths of the river Styx from his high dungeon and, believing him dead, seeks the aid of Licco (Marlin Miller) who promises to help her and Iole get revenge on Ercole.
Just as Ercole is about to marry Iole she saves herself by giving him an enchanted shirt and Ercole is instantly killed.
This production at the Het Musiektheater Amsterdam with the Concerto Köln and Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera by stage director David Alden and set designer Paul Steinberg is filled with quaint intentional anachronisms that add to the opera's humor, such as an oddly placed mobile phone, a six-pack of Heineken mini-kegs or Ercole's pro-wrestler action-figure costume.
Also making this revival of Cavalli's baroque opera a grand and marvelous achievement is the informed conducting by Ivor Bolton, beautiful vocal performances by Anna Maria Panzarella and Veronica Cangemi along with a charismatic performance by Luca Pisaroni as Ercole.
Ercole Amante is rarely performed and not often thought of as one of the great operas, but this oft-forgotten opera is and was responsible for influencing the French classical scene for decades after. De Nederlandse Opera and Opus Arte are to be applauded for this stupendous and immeasurably enjoyable revival.
So in comes Hercules: not the one of Hollywood's Reeves boys, not your circus strongman, but a suave Italian baritone, intoning praise for the art of lovemaking, Ars Amatoria well-defined by his own creator, a fellow name of Ovidius Naso, in his masterly Metamorphoses, not many years before.
Hercules in Love ("Ercole Amante") was first seen by a Parisian audience, February 7, 1626, deserves space on opera's upper shelf.
A recreation of that performance, that preserves the notes and interpretive detail and - even more - honors the spirit of the original masterpiece, awaits your pleasure in a two-disc package produced by Opus Arte, distributed under the aegis of Naxos, one of the few outfits that still proclaim, (and prove) that a serious-music label can dispense some measure of wonder and surprise. Yes, surprise; this is my first acquisition on the new Blu-Ray technology. What we have here is a putative re-creation of Francesco Cavalli's serio-comic opera, captured with astounding clarity as it just possibly took shape at the Théâtre des Machines at the Palais des Tuileries (but this time with an audience of something like 7,000).
The program even lists the music composed to accompany the King and his entourage as they mosey to their seats; imagine that happening here: martial, menacing, fearsome music to escort Mark Swed and me to our aisle seats!
The recorded performance happened last January at, as you may have guessed, Het Muziektheater Amsterdam, which has already sent two Monteverdi operas of similar high imagination, Return of Ulysses and The Coronation of Poppea, to our L.A. Opera, both directed by Pierre Audi and both outstanding accomplishments in the treacherous realm of "historically informed" revivals of very old, very great music, restored to brimming life.
Some history: We usually set a date in 1609, the year of Monteverdi's l'Orfeo, as the birth-year of the hybrid "Dramma per musica" that would soon metamorphose into the public entertainment known as Opera. It was Italy (of course) that built the world's first public opera house, in 1634.
The new art nourished a large and often somewhat weird passion for extravagant vocal display. David Alden's staging creates a splendid, integrated company with, as usual, moments of Aldenesque madcap. They are remarkably proficient in maintaining the sense of direction in this difficult stuff; the opening aria, with the Hercules of Luca Pisaroni, which he delivers while strapping on a set of plastic musculature piece by piece, is nothing you want to try at home.
From its time and place we expect a certain departure from reality in the plotting, and Francesco Buti's libretto, with its plastic-muscle-bound hero in and out of amorous involvement with Venus, Juno and (!) his mother, does not disappoint.
I hope I haven't overstressed the antiquarian value of this Ercole project and the other few attempts to revive and restore the particular marvels in our musical heritage. The music is, above all, beautiful; there are great scenes that linger in the memory; the emotional power derives from the confluence of the harmonious and the dissonant, as it does in Mozart or in Wagner.
You smile at the artificialities; then there comes a scene - a multitude of characters including parents, offspring and at least one imperial ghost of a nobleman recently deceased, gathered in a darkened prison cell, imploring the lordly Hercules to spare their lives -( I think I have some of this right). The music turns rich and plangent, as it often does in comparable, confrontational moments in Verdi, and you just look away from the dramatic absurdities and drink in the beauty. Ivor Bolton is the conductor, leading Concerto Köln, the excellent ensemble of many superb recordings (and which is booked into the Park Plaza Hotel in a not-to-be-missed event on May 3, Vivaldi, Sammartini,and Brandenburgs), to do his bidding.
You think your family is dysfunctional? Take Hercules' crew--please.
The half-god, half-mortal strongman has problems galore, woes which tended not to make it into any of those Steve Reeves Italian opuses from half a century ago.
You have to go several centuries further back, in fact, to get to Francesco Cavalli's little known and very rarely performed Ercole Amante, a wonderfully silly (at least in this production by the Nederlandse Opera) piece which takes nothing seriously as it explores the vagaries of love and desire.
Ercole Amante (Hercules in Love) finds our muscled hero (Luca Pisaroni) desperately in love with his own son's paramour, Iole (Veronica Cangemi) not exactly the basis for fun family dinners.
Unfortunately, Hercules also happens to have killed the poor lass' father when he rebuffed Hercules' advances toward his daughter.
That leaves Iole less willing than ever to consider Hercules' amorous aims.
Of course, there's also Hercules' long suffering wife, Deianira (Anna Maria Panzarella), who watches her husband's middle-aged crisis with alarm and outrage.
Seemingly everyone either has a God or two in tow, or manages to invoke one (or more) to aid their cause, so there's a whole Heavenly retinue along for this roller coaster ride of an opera.
The name Francesco Cavalli is probably not that familiar to even many opera aficionados, but he had a rather amazing reputation throughout the 17th century.
A student of Monteverdi, Cavalli was hailed not only as a composer of some repute, but also as an incredible organist and an excellent singer.
Cavalli actually was instrumental in helping to make Venetian opera the paradigm of the idiom during the Baroque era, and the composer was also one of the progenitors of tragédie lyrique.
Ercole Amante finds Cavalli working in more traditional buffa territory, at least in this outlandish production recorded live in 2009 at the Het Musiektheater Amsterdam.
With a slyly winking direction by David Alden complemented by simply amazing sets and costumes by Paul Steinberg and Constance Hoffman, this Ercole is a wonder to behold, a brilliantly buffoonish trip through both oversized emotions and biceps.
Ercole Amante's libretto by Francesco Buti is adapted from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and we indeed are witness to several metamorphoses throughout this splendid production.
The piece was written to honor the arranged marriage of Louis XIV with Spain's Marie-Thérèse, though problems with a specially built theater able to handle the massive stagecraft demands of the piece kept Ercole from actually being premiered until two years after the nuptials.
Ercole begins with a Prelude exulting the joys of being French, as well as an end to the long war with Spain.
The Ensemble morphs itself, via cascading ribbons of purplish blue fabric, into various rivers and seas, as we see Louis XIV (Pisaroni) and his bride in their marriage chamber. One of the funniest metamorphoses of the evening occurs when we get into the main story of the Hercules clan itself.
Pisaroni comes downstage and dons a gigantic muscled rubber suit to become the Greek semi-God. Wearing a "Gorgeous George" blonde wig and a skimpy pair of briefs capped by a sort of gigantic WWF heavyweight champion belt, it's a delicious send up of everything you've ever thought about dunderheaded strongmen.
We then begin to wend our way through five (yes, five) acts of completely ridiculous mismatched couples, all aided (or in some cases, literally put to sleep) by various Gods and Goddesses who reveal themselves to be their own dysfunctional family, each working at cross purposes to the other to attain their individual goals.
Hercules' son Hyllo (Jeremy Ovenden) is a sort of petulant teen, here wearing denim shorts and a more classical top.
You almost half expect him to erupt with a sighed, "Da-ad," with eyes rolling.
Iole seems the model of virginal correctness, even when she's alight a magical, leafy couch which lessens her resolve not to give in to Hercules.
Surrounding this daffy bunch of mortals is an equally absurd group of immortals, including Juno (Anna Bonitatitus), who repeatedly simply puts the humans to sleep (courtesy of Sonno, the sleep God) to keep more craziness from occurring.
The original production of Ercole Amante was slated to be the first offering at the then highest of high-tech theatrical palaces the Salle des Machines.
While the actual building did take several unexpected years to complete, the final edifice sat no fewer than an astounding 7,000 audience members. While the Het Musicktheater may not match those numbers, this is a gorgeously managed production, with so much fun in the stagecraft that at times Cavalli's rhythmically acute and wonderfully melodic music almost takes a back seat. (It should be noted that the ballet segments feature the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully, as was the case in those days of forced collaborations).
This Ercole features one stunningly rendered costume after another, a riot of color and pomp and circumstance, mixed with some outré elements, such as gigantic blow-up seraphim and mummy-like denizens of the underworld. It makes for a pageant of unending color and surprise, with just the right amount of humor and silliness sprinkled into the proceedings... We reviewers tend to be an awfully jaded lot at times. But every so often a wonderful little surprise comes down the pike to reawaken our love and enthusiasm. Ercole Amante is a near perfect soufflé, wonderfully melding Cavalli's gorgeous music with an outlandishly expressive physical production. Thank Heaven (literally in this case)--it's time to have fun at the opera again!
In this version of the story, however, ERCOLE is already married (to DEINAIRA) and is a total jerk, even attempting to rape his own son's girlfriend.
The opera was a flop when it was finally presented, after two years' delay, and Cavalli returned in frustration to Venezia.
The opera has had a handful of revivals in modern times, but the Nederlandse Opera production, comes closest to the spirit and intention of the original team.
The deep royal pockets provided a larger than usual orchestra and chorus, which Cavalli's score uses to great effect in the prologue and finale.
The Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera, under the leadership of Ivor Bolton, realize all the colors and drama of the score, which also includes such features of Cavalli's mature style as a sleep scene, sensuous duets and intense laments on descending bass-line patterns.
The production also requires a stage director able to balance the work's humour, tragic moments and divine interference without loading the stage with sight gags and cheap attention-grabbers.
David Alden attempts to recreate the energy, buzz and lavish scale of the first performance with some grandiose and spectacular scenic effects.
While some of the stage action is puzzling, Baroque references are appropriately, even wittily, employed.
The goddess GIUNONE descends on a light fixture, while NETTUNO rises from the sea via trapdoor.
When the music is powerful and the singer affecting, Alden wisely backs off.
Best of all Paul Steinberg's colorful, geometric sets is the seaside tower where ERCOLE has imprisoned his son: gigantic tropical fish and a tentacled anemone float across the stage in an elaborate radio-controlled dance that Louis XIV would have loved.
Constance Hoffman's costumes are similarly eclectic (with the chorus of dead people especially striking), highlighted by a set of plastic, muscled body pieces that Hercules dons, assembling himself into an action-figure in front of our eyes.
In one of the better rounds of DVD releases, Naxos offers five well-done, elaborate adaptations of exceptional works that rank among the more entertaining and effective in this cycle of such releases.
This was the first time any of us covered "L'Ercole Amante", an underseen, underrated Francesco Cavalli work that was actually commissioned for the marriage of the Sun King, Louis XIV and Marie-Therese.
The title character is a hero in a struggle over the future and how a marriage might just have on it. Experimental in its time, Constance Hoffman's costumes are exceptionally clever in bringing out the daring of the work back in the 1660s!
I really liked this one and it deserves rediscovery more than just about any other Opera I have seen in many years.
The 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image in all cases is better than usual, save Tristan, which is a little softer and plagued with motion blur than expected though the stage production still looks good too.
I was surprised in how good the others looked with fine color and more image stability than usual for such productions.
Sadly, the anamorphically enhanced DVDs for Tristan and ballo are unusually weak, which made ballo a big surprise in comparison when the Blu-ray looked so much better.
That leaves Ercole the best looking of the DVD versions covered here and one of the best of the Blu-rays.
The sound on the Blu-rays are all DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mixes except ballo in PCM 5.1, with PCM 2.0 Stereo as secondary tracks in all cases, while the DVDs have DTS 5.1.
The DTS on the DVDs are pretty good, but hit a point of strain often that the lossless DTS and PCM 5.1 mixes do not, which makes for interesting sonic comparisons.
None of the Blu-ray versions had the kind of breakout soundfields I was expecting, but they were really good just the same.
Extras in all editions and formats include booklets inside their respective cases, while all discs also add Illustrated Synopsis and Cast Galleries.
Minotaur repeats its DVD documentary Myth Is Universal, Ercole adds separate behind-the-scenes pieces with star Luca Pisaroni and Johannette Zomer (who has multiple roles) & a making of making of featurette, Giovanni adds a single interview piece with Stage Director Lluis Pasqual, Actor Carlos Alvarez & Conductor Victor Pablo Perez, while Tristan has its own making of featurette "Kinder, macht was Neues!" and the interesting Conductor Cameras option to watch Peter Schneider in action the whole way through.
It was 1659, Louis XIV of France was to marry Marie-Therese, and Mazarino invited Francesco Cavalli to compose an opera in honour of the event.
The result, "Ercole amante".
A modern staging of it can be seen on an Opus Arte DVD, which holds a 2009 production from Het Musiektheater Amsterdam, conducted by Ivor Bolton.
This opera is of great historical interest, standing as it does between the first "fabula con musica" (as opera was called when it was invented just about 1600) and the opera seria, which catered more to the star singers than to the drama.
The framework is the royal wedding, while the rest of the opera tells the story of how Hercules (Luca Pisaroni) wants the captive princess Iole (Veronica Cangemi), despite the devotion of his wife Deianira (Anna Maria Panzarella) and the intervention of the goddesses Juno (Anna Bonitatibus) and Venus (Wike de Brummelstroete).
I watched most of Act I, found I was unable to follow what was going on, switched to the 10-minute illustrated synopsis, found I understood about 1/4 of the plot, and settled back to enjoy the music and production on their own merits.
Classicists and drama majors will instantly recognize that the plot was inspired by Euripides' "ERCOLE FURIOSO"
The director hedged his bets.
In one of those unimaginative bonus features, we are told that although "Ercole amante" is a tragic opera, it still has its humorous moments.
Of course, there is some intended comic relief built into the libretto.
But the director decided to make ERCOLE into a clown -- this, despite the fact that he is supposed to represent Louis XIV!
So authenticity is blown to the winds right there.
For the most part, the costumes and scenery are those that might have been seen back in 1662, when it finally reached the stage.
But the director thought it would be hysterically funny to show ERCOLE with two over-sized 6-packs of Budweiser, another character with a modern backpack, and other anachronisms that are just silly if not stupid.
Worse still, the choreography (as is the case with at least two productions of Rameau operas) is strictly of the mid-20th-century frug, twist, and sudden muscle contortion sort that is as un-baroque as can be.
The dance of the mummies, while a little too modern, does have a creepy effect as the gauzy dancers totter to the music.
When Hercules first appears, he steps into high platform boots, a long blond wig and a plastic muscle shell, all of which make him look exactly like a particular rock star and/or a wrestler from half a century back.
Here, the character is sung by a bass-baritone who finds some of the low notes below his range and who can do little acting while locked in that costume (which, he tells in an interview, was like a sauna).
The opera runs just over three hours, the bonus material just over an hour.
The picture is in wide-screen format, and the subtitles are in six languages.
My tolerance for 17th century opera is generally low, but even I can appreciate the value in an underappreciated composer like Francesco Cavalli.
One of the most celebrated composers of early Baroque Opera, he's mostly been forgotten today.
Out of his thirty-five operas, only "La Calisto" is performed with any kind of regularity.
De Nederlandse Opera's new video release of Ercole Amante is in fact only the second recording the work has ever received (a long out-of-print CD conducted by Michel Corboz was the first).
Thankfully, this is an excellent (if bizarre) production of the opera, as well done as we're ever likely to see it. Composed for the occasion of the marriage of Louis XIV of France, (there is a lengthy prologue paying tribute to this glorious monarch), Ercole is one of those strange operas where there is so much going on that the action is more confusing than a Lars van Tier film.
Boiled down to its most basic elements, the plot concerns the great hero Ercole (Hercules), who is in love with the captive princess Iole.
There are two major problems therein: firstly, she's in love with his son Hyllo, and, secondly, Ercole is already married.
After the usual "she's betrayed me, no she hasn't" and "he's dead, no he's not, yes he is, actually no he's not" entanglements common to the era, Ercole is accidentally killed via a poisoned robe by his betrayed wife Deianira and packed off to Heaven, where, because he is a great hero if not a particularly nice guy, he gets to marry the goddess Bellezza.
On top of all that, throw in ever clichéd devise of Operas Buffa and Seria that you can think of. Warring goddesses?
Check. Cheeky servants? Check.
Magic spells? Check.
A visit to the underworld for the usual vengeful ghosts? Check.
A storm at sea which ends with a countertenor getting eaten by a fish? Check and double check.
With so much to deal with, it's little surprise that David Alden's production fails to make much sense of the proceedings.
While never quite as radical as his twin brother Christopher's, Alden's productions have always have resulted in a good amount of head scratching, in a word: the "huh?!" factor.
Since Ercole has the "huh?!" factor build in, it's a perfect vehicle for Alden's insanity, and he plays up the ridiculousness.
This is a world where anguished queens in 17th century finery stand next to servants dressed as 70s-style pimps, where dignified, ethereal goddesses suddenly break out into Bollywood dance moves, and of course, the obligatory squadron of giant dancing babies.
The madness onstage shouldn't work as well as it does, but even if it's not very cohesive it's certainly entertaining.
Alden's fine cast is up to the challenge of whatever he throws at him.
Luca Pisaroni, in the title role, is most challenged: when Ercole first appears, feeling lovesick and down in the dumps, he is shown to be a perfectly normal man, but over the course of his first scene, he puts on a costume consisting of a plastic muscle suit, platform shoes and a long blond wig, in a look apparently modeled after Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Pisaroni spends the rest of the opera stomping around onstage in this constricting garb, and not only pulls it off with flair but also brings a lyrical, darkly-hued baritone to the bullying title character.
His death scene is a fearless example of commitment, as Pisaroni lurches and crawls about the stage smearing himself with blood and singing an endless monologue of anguish before finally keeling over.
Magnificent: I suspect he would be an excellent Don Giovanni.
He is backed up by an exquisite supporting cast, which includes Baroque specialists like Umberto Chiummo, Mark Tucker and Johannette Zomer, all of who do excellent double duty in a series of cameo roles.
Veronica Canegmi suffers an unflattering make-up job but uses her light soprano exquisitely as Iole.
Likewise Jeremy Ovenden is shoved into a costume making him look like an obese 12-year-old, but sings ravishing as Hyllo.
Anna Maria Panzarelli is the excellent Deianira, the distant ancestor of Countess Almaviva.
Mezzos Anna Bonitatibus and Wilke te Brummelstroete deserve their divinity as Venere (Venus) and Giunone (Juno), who respectively aid and foil Ercole at every turn.
Bonitatibus is especially noteworthy, her darkly colored voice highlighting the danger lurking behind every word the goddess utters.
Marlin Miller is fussy and indistinct as the comic servant Licco, but countertenor Tim Mead is so funny his sidekick the Page that it makes one wish he doesn't get killed off halfway through the opera. (He's the aforementioned fish food.)
Since there are several ballets written into the opera (composed by the French King's court composer Lully rather than Cavalli), the dancers in this opera are nearly as important as the singers.
The choreography of Jonathan Lunn and the fine dancers, who are asked to perform everything from 17th century court dances to acrobatic flips to Mark Morris-style modernism, are definitely worth a mention.
Also notable are the effective sets of Paul Steinberg and the endlessly inventive costumes of Constance Hoffmann.
The Nederlandse Opera Chorus and the Concerto Köln also provide generally fine work, led by the expert baton work of Baroque specialist Ivor Bolton. More good news in is the packaging. Opus Arte usually has excellent presentational skills, and this is no exception.
The menus, picture and sound are all beautiful. There's also, as I've come to expect from Opus Arte, several interesting bonus features, including a half-hour behind the scene feature, which features plenty of rehearsal footage and interviews with many of the singers, Alden and several members of the production team. Also included are two documentary "meet the singer" profiles on Zimmer and Pisaroni, who comes off as a charmingly affable fellow unafraid of playing with his dog in the rain on the day of a performance (a refreshing change from the hypochondria that most singers, myself included, seem to fall into.) These bonus features are the cherry on top of the sundae; combine them with the strength of the performers, the bizarre wit of the production and the rarity of the opera to make a guaranteed recommendation.
Originally commissioned by Cardinal Mazarin to celebrate the marriage of the "Sun King," Louis XIV, and Marie Therese, Cavalli's "L'Ercole Amante" took two years to complete and was first performed at the Tuileries in Paris, France, on 7 February 1662.
It is Cavalli's only opera written for Paris.
With an Italian libretto by Francesco Buti based on Sophocles' The Trachiniae and the Book IX of Ovid's Metamorphoses, "Ercole Amante" tells the story of Ercole (Hercules) (Luca Pisaroni) who lusts after Iole (Veronica Cangemi), but she hates him for having killed her father.
She instead is in love with Ercole's son Hyllo (Hyllus) (Jeremy Ovenden), who in turn is in love with her.
Ercole, finding this out, wants to kill his son, but he relents, only after Iole agrees to marry him.
Ercole instead imprisons his son in a high dungeon.
Meanwhile, Ercole's wife and Hyllo's mother, Deianira (Anna Maria Panzarella) sees Hyllo, in despair, plunge to the depths of the river Styx from his high dungeon and, believing him dead, seeks the aid of Licco (Marlin Miller) who promises to help her and Iole get revenge on Ercole.
Just as Ercole is about to marry Iole she saves herself by giving him an enchanted shirt and Ercole is instantly killed.
This production at the Het Musiektheater Amsterdam with the Concerto Köln and Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera by stage director David Alden and set designer Paul Steinberg is filled with quaint intentional anachronisms that add to the opera's humor, such as an oddly placed mobile phone, a six-pack of Heineken mini-kegs or Ercole's pro-wrestler action-figure costume.
Also making this revival of Cavalli's baroque opera a grand and marvelous achievement is the informed conducting by Ivor Bolton, beautiful vocal performances by Anna Maria Panzarella and Veronica Cangemi along with a charismatic performance by Luca Pisaroni as Ercole.
Ercole Amante is rarely performed and not often thought of as one of the great operas, but this oft-forgotten opera is and was responsible for influencing the French classical scene for decades after. De Nederlandse Opera and Opus Arte are to be applauded for this stupendous and immeasurably enjoyable revival.
So in comes Hercules: not the one of Hollywood's Reeves boys, not your circus strongman, but a suave Italian baritone, intoning praise for the art of lovemaking, Ars Amatoria well-defined by his own creator, a fellow name of Ovidius Naso, in his masterly Metamorphoses, not many years before.
Hercules in Love ("Ercole Amante") was first seen by a Parisian audience, February 7, 1626, deserves space on opera's upper shelf.
A recreation of that performance, that preserves the notes and interpretive detail and - even more - honors the spirit of the original masterpiece, awaits your pleasure in a two-disc package produced by Opus Arte, distributed under the aegis of Naxos, one of the few outfits that still proclaim, (and prove) that a serious-music label can dispense some measure of wonder and surprise. Yes, surprise; this is my first acquisition on the new Blu-Ray technology. What we have here is a putative re-creation of Francesco Cavalli's serio-comic opera, captured with astounding clarity as it just possibly took shape at the Théâtre des Machines at the Palais des Tuileries (but this time with an audience of something like 7,000).
The program even lists the music composed to accompany the King and his entourage as they mosey to their seats; imagine that happening here: martial, menacing, fearsome music to escort Mark Swed and me to our aisle seats!
The recorded performance happened last January at, as you may have guessed, Het Muziektheater Amsterdam, which has already sent two Monteverdi operas of similar high imagination, Return of Ulysses and The Coronation of Poppea, to our L.A. Opera, both directed by Pierre Audi and both outstanding accomplishments in the treacherous realm of "historically informed" revivals of very old, very great music, restored to brimming life.
Some history: We usually set a date in 1609, the year of Monteverdi's l'Orfeo, as the birth-year of the hybrid "Dramma per musica" that would soon metamorphose into the public entertainment known as Opera. It was Italy (of course) that built the world's first public opera house, in 1634.
The new art nourished a large and often somewhat weird passion for extravagant vocal display. David Alden's staging creates a splendid, integrated company with, as usual, moments of Aldenesque madcap. They are remarkably proficient in maintaining the sense of direction in this difficult stuff; the opening aria, with the Hercules of Luca Pisaroni, which he delivers while strapping on a set of plastic musculature piece by piece, is nothing you want to try at home.
From its time and place we expect a certain departure from reality in the plotting, and Francesco Buti's libretto, with its plastic-muscle-bound hero in and out of amorous involvement with Venus, Juno and (!) his mother, does not disappoint.
I hope I haven't overstressed the antiquarian value of this Ercole project and the other few attempts to revive and restore the particular marvels in our musical heritage. The music is, above all, beautiful; there are great scenes that linger in the memory; the emotional power derives from the confluence of the harmonious and the dissonant, as it does in Mozart or in Wagner.
You smile at the artificialities; then there comes a scene - a multitude of characters including parents, offspring and at least one imperial ghost of a nobleman recently deceased, gathered in a darkened prison cell, imploring the lordly Hercules to spare their lives -( I think I have some of this right). The music turns rich and plangent, as it often does in comparable, confrontational moments in Verdi, and you just look away from the dramatic absurdities and drink in the beauty. Ivor Bolton is the conductor, leading Concerto Köln, the excellent ensemble of many superb recordings (and which is booked into the Park Plaza Hotel in a not-to-be-missed event on May 3, Vivaldi, Sammartini,and Brandenburgs), to do his bidding.
You think your family is dysfunctional? Take Hercules' crew--please.
The half-god, half-mortal strongman has problems galore, woes which tended not to make it into any of those Steve Reeves Italian opuses from half a century ago.
You have to go several centuries further back, in fact, to get to Francesco Cavalli's little known and very rarely performed Ercole Amante, a wonderfully silly (at least in this production by the Nederlandse Opera) piece which takes nothing seriously as it explores the vagaries of love and desire.
Ercole Amante (Hercules in Love) finds our muscled hero (Luca Pisaroni) desperately in love with his own son's paramour, Iole (Veronica Cangemi) not exactly the basis for fun family dinners.
Unfortunately, Hercules also happens to have killed the poor lass' father when he rebuffed Hercules' advances toward his daughter.
That leaves Iole less willing than ever to consider Hercules' amorous aims.
Of course, there's also Hercules' long suffering wife, Deianira (Anna Maria Panzarella), who watches her husband's middle-aged crisis with alarm and outrage.
Seemingly everyone either has a God or two in tow, or manages to invoke one (or more) to aid their cause, so there's a whole Heavenly retinue along for this roller coaster ride of an opera.
The name Francesco Cavalli is probably not that familiar to even many opera aficionados, but he had a rather amazing reputation throughout the 17th century.
A student of Monteverdi, Cavalli was hailed not only as a composer of some repute, but also as an incredible organist and an excellent singer.
Cavalli actually was instrumental in helping to make Venetian opera the paradigm of the idiom during the Baroque era, and the composer was also one of the progenitors of tragédie lyrique.
Ercole Amante finds Cavalli working in more traditional buffa territory, at least in this outlandish production recorded live in 2009 at the Het Musiektheater Amsterdam.
With a slyly winking direction by David Alden complemented by simply amazing sets and costumes by Paul Steinberg and Constance Hoffman, this Ercole is a wonder to behold, a brilliantly buffoonish trip through both oversized emotions and biceps.
Ercole Amante's libretto by Francesco Buti is adapted from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and we indeed are witness to several metamorphoses throughout this splendid production.
The piece was written to honor the arranged marriage of Louis XIV with Spain's Marie-Thérèse, though problems with a specially built theater able to handle the massive stagecraft demands of the piece kept Ercole from actually being premiered until two years after the nuptials.
Ercole begins with a Prelude exulting the joys of being French, as well as an end to the long war with Spain.
The Ensemble morphs itself, via cascading ribbons of purplish blue fabric, into various rivers and seas, as we see Louis XIV (Pisaroni) and his bride in their marriage chamber. One of the funniest metamorphoses of the evening occurs when we get into the main story of the Hercules clan itself.
Pisaroni comes downstage and dons a gigantic muscled rubber suit to become the Greek semi-God. Wearing a "Gorgeous George" blonde wig and a skimpy pair of briefs capped by a sort of gigantic WWF heavyweight champion belt, it's a delicious send up of everything you've ever thought about dunderheaded strongmen.
We then begin to wend our way through five (yes, five) acts of completely ridiculous mismatched couples, all aided (or in some cases, literally put to sleep) by various Gods and Goddesses who reveal themselves to be their own dysfunctional family, each working at cross purposes to the other to attain their individual goals.
Hercules' son Hyllo (Jeremy Ovenden) is a sort of petulant teen, here wearing denim shorts and a more classical top.
You almost half expect him to erupt with a sighed, "Da-ad," with eyes rolling.
Iole seems the model of virginal correctness, even when she's alight a magical, leafy couch which lessens her resolve not to give in to Hercules.
Surrounding this daffy bunch of mortals is an equally absurd group of immortals, including Juno (Anna Bonitatitus), who repeatedly simply puts the humans to sleep (courtesy of Sonno, the sleep God) to keep more craziness from occurring.
The original production of Ercole Amante was slated to be the first offering at the then highest of high-tech theatrical palaces the Salle des Machines.
While the actual building did take several unexpected years to complete, the final edifice sat no fewer than an astounding 7,000 audience members. While the Het Musicktheater may not match those numbers, this is a gorgeously managed production, with so much fun in the stagecraft that at times Cavalli's rhythmically acute and wonderfully melodic music almost takes a back seat. (It should be noted that the ballet segments feature the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully, as was the case in those days of forced collaborations).
This Ercole features one stunningly rendered costume after another, a riot of color and pomp and circumstance, mixed with some outré elements, such as gigantic blow-up seraphim and mummy-like denizens of the underworld. It makes for a pageant of unending color and surprise, with just the right amount of humor and silliness sprinkled into the proceedings... We reviewers tend to be an awfully jaded lot at times. But every so often a wonderful little surprise comes down the pike to reawaken our love and enthusiasm. Ercole Amante is a near perfect soufflé, wonderfully melding Cavalli's gorgeous music with an outlandishly expressive physical production. Thank Heaven (literally in this case)--it's time to have fun at the opera again!
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