L'ERISMENA DI CAVALLI

Speranza

Francesco Cavalli is in a way to Italian opera what Shakespeare is to English theatre.

Cavalli didn't invent commercial music theatre, but he was almost in at the start.

Cavalli is supposed, as a student of Monteverdi, to have persuaded Monteverdi to produce Poppea and Ulisse for the public stage after a lifetime of work for patrons.

And Cavalli himself wrote a large number of operas that were highly successful in their time and are still good value today.

Cavalli's music is similar to that of Monteverdi's operas, through-composed and probably not particularly demanding technically but inseparable from the drama.

And the dramas are thoroughly of their time, with complex plots, dramatic recognitions, comic servants and cross-dressing both within and outside the plot.

Erismena seems to be based on a lost tragedy of the same title whose plot is summarised by a later source, but it ties several more knots in the web and comes closed to defying summary.

ARGOMENTO

Erisemena is disguised as a warrior.

A captive beauty, Aldimira, falls in love with Erismena, disguised as a warrior, and dumps her two current lovers as well as continuing to spurn Erimante, the king of Media.

Erimante recognises the disguised warrior from a dream as the person who will take his kingdom away from him.

So, the king ERIMANTE tells one of Aldimira's ex-lovers to kill the warrior, Erismena.

The attempt fails because Erismena recognizes her would-be killer as the man who broke her heart and she faints dead away.

Believing the Erismena dead, Erimante tells Aldimira that she can have him if Aldimira can wake Erismena.

She does, and Erimante in a rage condemns the failed assassin and the warrior to fight to the death.

As Erismena removes her armour, her sex becomes apparent.

Erismena turns out to be Erimante's daughter.

Aldimira turns out to be the princess of Iberia and long-lost sister of her ex-lover, Idraspe.

Erismena marries her ex-lover, Idraspe.

Aldimira goes back to her other lover, who isn't related to anybody.

There was some head scratching as some read the synopsis programme before the performance and not everyone was wiser at the end.

The production is economical and efficient, and presented the characters and action in a familiar format.

The English verse translation, though, isn't always incisive when it is audible in a place that helps the sparky small orchestra and to a lesser extent the singer's voices but deadens the words.

The singers nevertheless give spirited performances, and the generality of what is going on comes over entertainingly and occasionally with some power.

The title role is stately and rather solemn, but vocally magnificent, whereas Aldimira is suitably tarty

We don't get much of an impact with Orimeno, the decent lover of Aldimira whose role is mainly to pair off with her at the end, though Orimeno delivered a passionate tirade against love from the pulpit.

A a fairly standard-issue baritone tyrant is Erimante.

For the role of Idraspe we ned dramatic complexity.
The factotum Argippo and Aldimira's nurse-confidante Flerida are good.

Neither of them really had the chance to work up the comedy of their roles.

Perhaps Flerida isn't quite as rich a role as Arnalta in Poppea, an obvious sister, but she is still potentially very funny and filthy.

Argippo likewise is clearly similar to Elviro in Serse (also set by Cavalli), a wonderfully comic role in Handel's version.