Charming arias and a cute story
Classical music
Bud Roach’s Capella Intima is at it again. Known for their historically informed musical forages off the beaten track, the Hamilton-based vocal quartet is staying true to its roots with a concert performance of a Baroque rarity, Alessandro Scarlatti’s opera “Gli equivoci nel sembiante,” as they help to kick off Hamilton Arts Week this Saturday, June 2 at 2:30 p.m. in The Cotton Factory.
The Palermo-born Scarlatti (1660-1725) was a prodigious composer with scads of motets, masses, cantatas, oratorios, serenatas, and operas to his credit. He also had four musical siblings, and his son, Domenico, became a renowned composer, too.
Written when Scarlatti was 18, “Gli equivoci” was the first of his more than 60 operas, and served as his entrée into Rome’s opera scene. It quickly became a hot item, toured Italy under different titles, and remained popular throughout the composer’s lifetime. A modern edition published by Harvard University Press in 1982 rescued the opera from obscurity and has become the go-to score for the few stagings it has had ever since. With its cast of four singers, “Gli equivoci,” which Roach and company are titling “Folly in Love,” is a perfect fit for Capella Intima. Apart from some brief excerpts uploaded online, Roach says that the complete opera has thus far remained unrecorded, though that will change when Capella Intima commits it to disc in June, and unperformed in Canada.
“I don’t understand why,” said Roach to The Spectator from his Hamilton home. “The arias are charming. The story is very cute.”
The pastoral opera is a comedy revolving around love and jealousy, innocent amorous intrigues, and mistaken identities. New Brunswick-based mezzo Vicki St. Pierre, deputizing for Capella Intima’s indisposed alto, Jennifer Enns Modolo, will sing the role of the nymph Clori, while that of her younger sister, Lisetta, will be sung by soprano Sheila Dietrich. Roach will take the tenor role of the shepherd Eurillo, Clori’s beau, and baritone David Roth will be heard as Armindo, who in the all’s-well-thatends-well ending, turns out to be Eurillo’s long-lost twin. An English translation, tweaked by former Mac prof Gabriele Erasmi, of the sung Italian will be projected on screens during the performance. Props will be limited to a love letter, a fishing rod, and, for the sleep scene, a recliner. Accompaniment will be provided by six instrumentalists, most of them from the KitchenerWaterloo-based period instrument ensemble, the Nota Bene Baroque Players. There will be no conductor, though at rehearsals Roach is doubling as musical director.
“It will be a collaborative effort,” said Roach. “I have no intention of being dictatorial.”
Roach says that “Folly in Love,” which will also be performed in Kitchener and St. Catharines as a co-production between Capella Intima, the Nota Bene Baroque Players and the Gallery Players of Niagara, comes with a price tag of $35,000. According to Roach, funding has come from the Ontario Arts Council, $6,500 alone from its classical recording program on top of a presenter/producer grant, $12,000 from the Canada Council, $10,000 from the City of Hamilton Enrichment Fund, plus monies from private patrons, and in kind donations.
“This is first project that I have been involved in where everyone is going to be making the instrumental union rates for everything,” said Roach. “There won’t be a deal, like, ‘Here, take 50 copies of the finished CD for you to sell at your own concerts.’ None of that. Everyone’s just getting paid. I’ve never had a situation like this before, and we had to work so hard to make it happen.”
As for the CD, that will be recorded over six and a half sessions next week in Central Presbyterian with local producer Kirk Starkey at the controls. Roach is aiming for a fall release on the Cambridge, Mass.-based niche label, Musica Omnia.
“I think it’s going to be a fast paced, fun presentation,” said Roach confidently of the three act opera which contains 106 numbers, and a whopping 18 arias for Clori, none lasting longer than three minutes.
“Two and a half hours, or your money back.” On Sunday, June 10 at 2 p.m. in the Hamilton Art Gallery’s Joey & Toby Tanenbaum Pavilion, 123 King St. W., Chamber Music Hamilton’s season closing Special Feature features co-artistic director Michael Schulte on violin and theremin, David Hetherington on cello and musical saw, violist Caitlin Boyle, flutist Leslie Newman, pianist Christina Petrowska-Quilico, violinists Joe Lanza and Erica Beston, and oboist Graham Mackenzie. On the bill, Beethoven’s “Serenade in D,” Abby RichardsonSchulte’s “When Words Fail,” Martinu’s 1944 “Fantasie” for theremin, oboe, string quartet and piano, Saint-Saëns’s “The Swan,” and Alexander Courage’s “Theme from Star Trek.” Cost: $35, senior $30, student $15. Call 905-525-7429.