ANTONIO VIVALDI
Farnace · Dramma per musica

Reference: AV9822

• Jordi Savall
• Le Concert des Nations

The present recording of Vivaldi’s opera Farnace is the first complete recording, including all the arias and choruses from the 1731 version, as well as restoring Tamiri’s recitativo accompagnato from the 1738 version. For historical and conceptual reasons, each of the three acts is preceded by different examples from Corselli’s version of the opera, which was presented in Madrid in 1738. The entire version is built around a selection of the best interpretations from the last two performances recorded live at Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, on 26 and 28 October, 2001. It should therefore be pointed out that any differences of sound or mood which may occasionally seem to affect the singing, or give the impression of the singers being further away, are due to the singers’ position on the stage. Any small inconvenience arising from the recording of a live stage performance is amply compensated for by the great spontaneity of the Recitatives and the sincerity of feeling in the Arias, in which the singers truly improvise some ornamentations in the da capo sections of the Arias in question.

An opera is always an all-round spectacle, in which text, declamation, music, song, dance and theatre enter into a dialogue and are united in their one common objective: to invite us to dream by drawing us into a Utopian world, one which is always full of magic, beauty and emotion.

Jordi Savall
Madrid, October, 2001

Act One
Farnaces, King of Pontus, son and successor to Mithridates, the great enemy of the Roman Empire, has been defeated and driven out of Heraclea, the capital of the Pontian kingdom. The pleas of his wife Tamiri are powerless to dissuade him from seeking vengeance and, faced with the doubtful possibility of victory, he orders her to slay their son and then kill herself rather than fall into the hands of the enemy. Enter Berenice, Queen of Cappadocia and mother of Tamiri. Her hatred of Farnaces has made her an ally of Pompey, the head of the conquering Roman troops, with whom she has agreed to kill the defeated king. Selinda, the sister of Farnaces, who has been taken prisoner by the Roman prefect Aquilius, manages to seduce both him and Gilades, Berenice’s captain, in order to set the two at loggerheads and thus help her brother’s cause. Meanwhile, Tamiri decides to save her son by hiding him inside a pyramid, the tomb of the kings of Pontus. Just as she is about to kill herself with the dagger given to her by her husband, she is prevented from doing so by the entry of Berenice. Mother and daughter argue. The arrival of Pompey with his entourage intensifies the atmosphere of hatred.

+ information in the CD booklet

Julián García León