Helsinki Festival programme contains every year some special
classical pieces. This year they had managed with the favourable support of the
Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation to get an especially exciting visitor – the Freiburg
Baroque Orchestra. It is one of the best known baroque orchestras in the world and
directed by Gottfried von der Goltz, who also plays violin in the orchestra.
My first surprise I got when the orchestra marched to the
stage, because they played a major part of the evening standing, which in some
performances seemed to give to the playing some extra energy, relaxedness,
almost folk music type of beat. The music played was, of course, baroque, but
with a twist.
The concert consisted of works of two major baroque
composers. There were two concerto grossos from Arcangelo Corelli (Concerto
grosso No 3 in C minor and Concerto grosso No 1 in D-major) and Giovanni
Battista Pergolesi’s work “Salve Regina” plus his opera “La serva padrona”. The
choices reflected the career of the composers quite well, since today Corelli
is known for his instrumental pieces (which he mainly composed) and Pergolesi
is famous for his vocal music.
Corelli’s concerto grossos made a great impression at least
on me. The C minor and D-major pieces were clearly different. I especially
admired the oboe parts of the first piece (Katharina Arfken and Maike Buhrow), but
in both concerto grossos the wind instruments were superb in general. The
second piece was almost completely “Allegro” and I absolutely loved the “discussions”
between the violins. I got a really strong feeling that the musicians enjoyed
playing in Helsinki.
The soloist in Pergolesi’s ”Salve Regina” was Sunhae Im
(soprano). The music was beautiful, but I was not fully happy with the rather delicate
voice of Im. “Salve Regina” is a religious piece and somehow in my ears the
performance lacked a bit of strength.
Im sang also in ”La serva padrona” the role of Serpina and
that was a more solid performance from her. The story is the same as in ”La
serva padrona” by Paisiello that I saw in June: the servant (Serpina) yearns to
marry her master Uberto (baritone Furio Zanasi). She conspires with another
servant (Vespone – a silent role played by the director of the opera, Tristan
Braun) and in the end Uberto and Serpina end up married (in this version rather
happily). Im made Serpina a girlish, wily and playfull seductress. The shrew
that was seen in the Paisiello production was pretty much invisible. Uberto was
a more non-descript figure than in the Paisiello production and clearly in the
shadow of Serpina. Both operas had their star moments, but to me the Paisiello
production ended up as a winner. I can still remember the fine arias by Antti
Pakkanen as Uberto in Suomenlinna, when in comparison none of the Zanasi arias made
quite the same impression.
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