Giuseppe Gazzaniga: L’isola d’Alcina – L’arte del mondo & Werner Ehrhardt

The multi-award-winning early music orchestra l’arte del mondo and their director Werner Ehrhardt delight with Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s operatic satire “L’isola d’Alcina” at deutsche harmonia mundi.

Since 2004, the trademarks of the early music orchestra l’arte del mondo have included sensational rediscoveries in the field of opera as well. Now the orchestra and its artistic director Werner Ehrhardt are adding another spectacular operatic rarity to their award-winning discography. It is the opera satire “L’isola d’Alcina”, with which the Italian and Mozart contemporary Giuseppe Gazzaniga verballhorned the countless “Alcina” operas of the Baroque. gazzaniga’s comic opera premiered in Venice in 1772 and was soon performed throughout Europe. Now the l’arte del mondo orchestra, conducted by Werner Ehrhardt, together with a first-rate ensemble of soloists, presents this operatic rediscovery in a live recording from 2022, co-produced with WDR. The role of Alcina, the enchantress who ensnares all men, is played by soprano Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli.

Countless composers have set the mythological Alcina theme to music, including Handel with his famous opera “Alcina”. Gazzaniga’s “L’isola d’Alcina” now proves to be a brilliant parody of this ancient myth and plays with several national clichés. A Frenchman, an Englishman, an Italian, a Spaniard and a German are stranded in a lonely region. And to their astonishment, it turns out to be the island of Alcina: the sorceress who should have been dead 800 years ago – but who presents herself to her guests as ageless and seductively beautiful. In the conflict between reason and temptation, the island visitors get into great (love) turbulences and can only leave the island again after they have literally unmasked Alcina’s spell as an “old braid”. Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s music turns out to be immensely brilliant and inventive and delights with its colorful instrumentation. All of this is performed by Werner Ehrhardt and his orchestra l’arte del mondo with precise comic timing and by the soloists with playful wit. Giuseppe Gazzaniga (1743-1818), a native of Verona, composed over 60 operas; including a “Don Giovanni” that was even more successful than Mozart’s piece at the time.