Vivaldi - Prima Donna
Stutsmann; Orfeo 55
DG 476 4390

Release date September 2011

Nathalie Stutzmann, one of the few genuine contraltos around today, is a remarkable musician. Well-known for her interpretations of French and German song repertoire (including recordings of the three Schubert song-cycles), she is also vastly experienced in earlier music such as Handel and Mozart. In 2008 she made her debut as a conductor, and the following year founded her own chamber orchestra Orfeo 55, an ensemble that plays both baroque and modern instruments, allowing her to venture into very diverse repertoires. This, her debut recording with the ensemble, is an enticing collection of Vivaldi opera and oratorio arias written mainly for the female contralto voice (rather than for castrati, although she includes a few of these too). The quality of her voice from the outset (a fiery and impassioned account of Agitati infido flatu from Juditha Triumphans) is arresting: very masculine, in fact quite similar to Andreas Scholl’s but with more heft behind it. She has an excellent feel for the often quite florid ornamentation, but not at the expense of the music’s line. Her singing is mercifully free of mannerisms, and her diction excellent. I particularly enjoyed the haunting, ghostly beauty of the first of her arias from Arsilda, Regina di Ponto and the magical tranquillity of Sovvente il sole from Andromeda liberata. The use of plucked instruments such as mandolin and psaltery in some of the arias adds piquancy to the performances. A further incentive to buy the disc (should one be needed) is the inclusion of several world premiere recordings, including an aria recently discovered in Berkeley castle, Gloucestershire, and realisations by Stutzmann of four short instrumental ritornelli preserved in Vivaldi’s manuscripts and drawn from lost or unfinished arias. Orfeo 55 plays with great spirit and panache throughout – worthy collaborators in a truly stunning disc.

Reviewed by Anne McAlister