Cesti:
Le disgrazie d’Amore:
A ‘comic moral opera’ in 3 Acts (1667)

A delightful blend of slapstick and highly allusive banter, Cesti’s comic moral opera mocks the pagan gods and the morally reprehensible excesses caused by amorous passion. Pietro Antonio Cesti (born in Arezzo, 1623; died in Florence, 1669) was, along with Francesco Cavalli, the most illustrious representative of the seventeenth-century Venetian school of opera composers. Like many Seicento artists, he had an eventful life embracing multiple activities, as singer, actor, composer and maestro di cappella; like Vivaldi he took holy orders; and, like the murdered Stradella, he died in murky circumstances (probably by poisoning) after an outstanding musical career. He was an itinerant composer, dividing his activity between Venice and the courts of Florence, Vienna and Innsbruck. The work recorded here dates from his period at the Viennese court, and the opera is characteristic of Viennese opera’s synthesis between the comical, parodic register typical of the Venetian aesthetic (of which Cavalli’s La Calisto is a remarkable example) and the moral, edifying dimension inherent to court opera.

'There's a freshness of invention in these early operas which is still immediately attractive today … Musically there's much to appeal … This is a performance which invites sustained listening. Partly it's the sheer variety of voices and moods which helps conjure up the action in the theatre of the mind, partly it's to do with Cesti's powerful recitative and arioso, but in large measure it is to do with the variety of pacing, careful characterisation and engaging singing from the cast under the direction of Carlo Ipata' (International Record Review)

'Most of these singers are accomplished, but the male soprano Paolo Lopez as Cupid is truly exceptional. The sound is good and the music is well-crafted with some echoes of Monteverdi's Poppea' (BBC Music Magazine)

'A lively and stylish performance' (Gramophone)

'A comedy of amorous intrigue, satirising the venal appetites of the gods in music that is graceful and shapely' (The Daily Telegraph)

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Recording details: February 2009; Villa Agostini della Seta, Corliano, San Giuliano Terme, Pisa, Italy; Produced by Sigrid Lee; Engineered by Roberto Meo; Release date: January 2010;