Roberta Mameli
We love a gorgeous unamplified human voice and we love learning things. Both these wishes were granted last night at Bohemian Hall when Aspect Chamber Music presented a program entitled The Ghosts of Hamlet. First we heard a stimulating illustrated lecture by the engaging John Brewer, Professor of History and Literature, Emeritus; then we heard a most gratifying concert of Baroque music performed by Le Concert de l'Hostel Dieu featuring stunning soprano Roberta Mameli.
To those of us who know the story of Hamlet as a 1601 Shakespearean play and as an 1868 grand opera in five acts by the French composer Ambroise Thomas, (based on a French adaptation of the Shakespeare work by Alexandre Dumas, père, and Paul Meurice ) the lecture was a revelation. The origin of the Hamlet story was Gesta Danorum, a history of the Danish people written at the beginning of the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus. The story concerns a King of Denmark treacherously murdered by his brother who then marries the King's widow. The King's son feigns madness and the usurper tries to reveal him. The son uncovers a spy and brutally murders him along with a bunch of nobles and the usurper, then manages to become King himself.
From this raw and bloody material, Shakespeare fashioned a play filled with ambiguity, subtlety, and exploration of character. A century later, one Apostolo Zeno created a dramma per musica for Venice, one that derives directly from the source and departs significantly from Shakespeare's iteration, giving much more importance to the female characters.
And thus we have a great deal of music of the Italian Baroque based upon Zeno's rendering of the Danish "history" which may or may not be legend. Amongst a slew of composers who wrote operas entitled Ambleto, the only composers of the group with whom we are familiar are Scarlatti who wrote his opera for Roma in 1715 and Handel who wrote another Ambleto for London in 1712.
Performing excerpts from several of these operas was a most talented chamber group Le Concert de l'Hostel Dieu, the members of which were unfortunately not mentioned in the program; but there were three violinists, a cellist, and a theorboist who doubled on lute, all conducted by Franck-Emmanuel Comte who played an instrument that sounded like a harpsichord but was very small. Dear Reader, forgive our ignorance but we are not specialists in the field of Baroque music.
Performing the arias was the glorious Roman soprano Roberta Mameli whose penetrating and flexible instrument was well under her control as she negotiated all manner of Baroque fioritura whilst conveying a panoply of emotions. We enjoyed the performance the most when the violins were silent and she was accompanied only by the cello and the theorbo. The texture was divine. One could tell how much she enjoys singing these works and if we ever got the chance to hear her perform a Monteverdi opera or a Händel one, we would be in seventh heaven.
Some of the other Italian composers who were unknown to us were Francesco Gasparini, Giuseppe Carcani, and Carlo Francesco Pollarolo. Johann Joseph Fux also composed something instrumental for Vienna and Johann Adolf Hasse for Paris, although we are not sure whether their works were related to Hamlet.
Which brings us to a small quibble. We would have loved projected titles since we were unwilling to tear ourselves away from the compelling performance to follow the program, not to mention the fact that the lighting was insufficient for reading it.
However, let us end on a high note, so to speak. The most welcome encore was an aria "Lascia ch'io pianga la mia sorte" from Händel's 1711 opera Rinaldo. The composer had used that melody a number of times with different text before it achieved fame in Rinaldo. It achieved further fame when used in the film Farinelli. We were thrilled to hear something familiar to close this excellent program.
© meche kroop
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