ARGIPPO: Vivaldi's Pasticcio Opera Out On Naïve's Vivaldi Edition

French label Naïve Classiques announces the release of Vivaldi's opera Argippo, the 64th album in the label's Vivaldi Edition. Argippo is an opera-pasticcio comprised of 19 arias found in Regensburg and accompanying recitatives from Darmstadt, compiled by Fabio Biondi to recreate Vivaldi's vision for the complete opera.

Though the Vivaldi Edition is devoted to newly rediscovered manuscripts of Vivaldi's works housed at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin, it is also committed to recording all of Vivaldi's operas, even those including music not from Vivaldi's pen but from contributions by Porpora, Hasse and others.

A pasticcio opera was a style much in vogue in the 18th century in which one person, usually a composer, would oversee the genesis of an opera (the libretto and roles, for example) and include arias by various composers as well as his own. Vivaldi's Argippo affords a rare example of the adaptation of such an opera to meet the needs of itinerant opera companies who performed throughout 18th-century Europe. As is the case here, arias by other composers were added, recitatives rewritten, roles altered while remaining firmly based on a genuine pasticcio opera, Argippo, which Vivaldi himself originally presented in both Prague and Vienna in 1730. Attesting to its success, opera companies continued to perform Argippo from 1733 to 1753, tweaking the work as they went along, but clearly retaining Vivaldi's original foundation.

Vivaldi's original Argippo from 1730 is unfortunately lost, so there remains some mystery about the work. Librettos for productions in Vienna and Prague still exist, along with a set of arias and a full score, now in Darmstadt. The Vivaldi Edition has decided to include this rare example of the only of Argippo's many 18th-century renditions that has survived the centuries.

Librettist Domenico Lalli, who had earlier contributed to Vivaldi's opera Ottone in villa, found inspiration for Argippo in the Mughal Empire and the "exoticism" fashionable in Venetian society at the time. The story tells of rivalry in love, family conflict, misunderstanding, wounded feelings and inflamed emotions. The cast is led by the "strong, bright and clear, innately attractive" (Gramophone) soprano of Emőke Baráth in the title role, with contralto Delphine Galou (Zanaida), Marianna Pizzolato (Silvero), Luigi de Donato (Tisifaro) and Marie Lys (Osira).