The Argentinian soprano Verónica Cangemi, a well known Baroque specialist, joined forces with Andrea Marcon and his La Cetra Baroque Orchestra for an excellent concert, which featured arias by Handel and orchestral music by Vivaldi, the final serious event at the Halle Handel Festival for 2023, and was also notable for the contribution of Celine Pasche, on recorder and harp.
The first item was Vivaldi’s Sinfonia in G major, RV 146, played with great energy in the allegro and presto parts, but beautifully lyrical in the intervening andante “e sempre piano”. Jettisoning the printed program, Cangemi then devoted the first part of the concert to arias from Alcina, starting with “Di’, cor mio, quanti t'amai”, the eponymous heroine’s first aria, when all is still sweetness and light. This was sung with creamy expressive tone, some vibrato and quite a bit of power. An orchestral suite of music from Alcina and Ariodante followed, in the final movement of which Pasche abandoned the harp she had been playing in the continuo and picked up the recorder. There was quite a bit of tuning before and after this, perhaps due to the seasonal heat and humidity.
Cangemi returned for Alcina’s big betrayal aria “Ah! mio cor”, pulling out all the emotional stops. She started with a long drawn out messa di voce – even longer in the da capo – and had there been any scenery it would have been in shreds. After a tsunami of applause, she lightened the mood for Morgana’s “Tornami a vagheggiar”, a melodic delight.
After the interval, the orchestra redeployed itself with a small group on the right of the stage, reproducing the staging of Cleopatra's aria with on-stage banda, “V’adoro, pupille”, sumptuously played and sung. We then had the Chaconne from Handel's Terpsichore, followed by another highly emotional aria, Ginevra’s “Il mio crudel martoro” from Ariodante. Cangemi’s carefully wrought phrasing and attention to the text, as well as her vocal security, swept the audience along and at its conclusion a long pin-drop silence ensued before thunderous applause.
In another change of pace, this was followed by Vivaldi’s Recorder Concerto in C major, RV 443, in which the versatile Pasche turned in a virtuosic performance, with no score, featuring a very fast first movement with a lovely graceful cadenza. The final programmed offering was Ginevra’s light-hearted “Volate, amori” from Ariodante – fast and exultant. A not entirely surprising encore came in the form of “Lascia ch’io pianga” from Handel’s Rinaldo.
