Presenting Vivaldi’s Lost Works

Lianhe Zaobao 联合早报, 29 Dec 2022

(Translation)

While Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is a widely popular work, less are familiar with his operatic compositions. Local opera company Lirica Arts joins forces with Red Dot Baroque to present the lesser known operatic works of Vivaldi, including some that were only discovered in the last 20 years. This programme can be said to be unprecedented locally.

Vivaldi is widely recognized as one of the most prolific baroque composers, and his main output of works include hundreds of violin concertos, including The Four Seasons. What is lesser known, however, is Vivaldi’s equally large output of works as an operatic composer.

Local opera company Lirica Arts will join hands with Red Dot Baroque, collaborating to present Vivaldi’s operatic works. This programme can be said to be unprecedented locally.

The Lost Operas

This concert will present over 20 pieces, all taken from lesser known works including La Fida Ninfa, Farnace and Griselda, some of which were only discovered in the past 20 years.

“It is said that Vivaldi wrote over 100 operas, of which only 45 survive today”, says baritone Martin Ng, founder of Lirica Arts. “But manuscripts have steadily been re-discovered in recent years, or proven to be in Vivaldi’s hand. For example, one of our featured operas, Motezuma, was discovered in a library in Berlin in 2002”.

Motezuma is based on Montezum II, Emperor of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century. The opera was first performed in Venice in 1733, and was lost till its recent performance in 2005 in Germany. “Vivaldi worked in the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice for over 30 years, during which time he wrote many compositions for the students in the school”, says Ng. “While many audiences know of Vivaldi through The Four Seasons, I wish audiences will also recognize his achievements in operatic writing through this concert”.

Dream Collaboration

“Vivaldi has been one of my favorite composers since I was young, not only because I play the violin, but also because of a CD album of Vivaldi’s arias that my father bought for me that aroused my interest in him”, says Alan Choo, founder of Red Dot Baroque. “When I received Ng’s invitation to collaborate, I was very excited to see that the program included 4 of the arias I was familiar with from that CD album.”

One of the arias from Vivaldi’s Farnace, “Gelido in ogni vena” (“Ice in every vein”), borrows material from “Winter” of The Four Seasons. In this concert, Choo will perform the 2nd movement of “Winter”, leading into this spine-chilling aria.

Red Dot Baroque has also collaborated with The Opera People in other baroque operas in recent years, including Handel’s Messiah. Red Dot Baroque has also collaborated with the vocal department at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Bach’s St. John Passion. Choo says, “Baroque music birthed from opera, and the music that our period ensemble performs is closely tied to the vocal music. We welcome and look forward to similar collaborations in the future.”

Concert Line-up

This concert will feature 17 musicians from Red Dot Baroque on period instruments. Local singers soprano Joyce Lee Tung and Rebecca Chellappah, tenor Jonathan Macpherson, countertenor Chan Wei En and baritone Martin Ng from Lirica Arts will sing alongside two other guest musicians.

Soprano Claire Teo from ARTDIS is visually impaired, but her disability has not stopped her from giving up her pursuit of music and the arts. A former student of Martin Ng, she will perform a duet aria with soprano Joyce Lee Tung.

The other guest musician is soprano Cheng Szu Yun from Taiwan, who has recently performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan and The National Taichung Theatre, among others. While Ng describes Cheng’s voice as “very lyrical, especially suited for romantic operas by Vivaldi and others”, he has invited Cheng to take on an aria with a display of vocal pyrotechnics.

Opera was one of the most popular forms of entertainment in 18th century Venice. Castrato Farinelli was so popular during his time that his life story was filmed into a movie Farinelli in 1994. Farinelli’s composer brother Riccardo Broschi once composed an aria for Farinelli, which was later included in Vivaldi’s opera Bajazet. This is one of the arias that Cheng will be singing in this concert.

English translation by Brenda Koh