Händel – Atalanta - Katalin Farkas, Eva Bartfai-Barta, Eva Lax, Janos Bandi, Jozsef Gregor, Laszlo Polgar / Capella Savaria, Nicholas McGegan / Hungaroton 3x Audio CD 1985 Stereo

HCD12612-14-2

Tracklist:

 https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/handel-atalanta

This is a welcome issue, not only because Atalanta has never previously been recorded, but because almost all that is ever heard from it is its very first aria, ''Care selve''. (Handel's placing of a winner right at the start of an opera—as also with ''Ombra mai fu'' in Serse—leaes me wondering whether he was indifferent to latecomers missing it, or perhaps whether he didn't realize that he had a winner on his hands.) In fact, this work proves to be full of invention; and the reason for its present neglect—though it was a great success at the time—is most probably its particularly artificial and undramatic plot, which is about one real shepherd-shepherdess pair and another of a king and princess feigning to be such, both ladies in love with their wooers but, for different reasons, acting coy. It is not really an opera but a pastoral, and was written for the wedding in 1736 of Frederick, Prince of Wales (hitherto an anti-Handelian) to Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha: in the Third Act the stage situation is hastily sorted out, and Mercury descends to bless the royal marriage and, amid fireworks, to lead the jubilation.
Much praise is due to the excellent 30-strong Capella Savaria (on period instruments) and to Nicholas McGegan (in his most successful recording to date) for achieving a consistently stylish and alert performance that is springly on its toes throughout. All the singers decorate the da capo section of their arias most convincingly (though are some final cadenzas overdone?) and the pacing of recitatives—a feature so often given scant attention—is exceptionally good, with asides suitably differentiated. (But it is a pity that the recitatives sound, from a slight variation in the acoustic, as if they had been recorded separately.)
Detailed consideration of the singers, however, reveals some uneveness. Much the best is the radiant and youthful-voiced Katalin Farkas in the title-role: after her brilliant first arioso and aria one awaits her entry with delight, and she invests her words with meaning in a way that not all her colleagues match. (Indeed, some give the impression of finding the story too silly to become involved in.) Eva Lax does her best to enlist our sympathies for the coldly calculating shepherdess Irene, who is roundly told off by Jozsef Gregor as her father. (It is interesting that the opening of his aria ''Impara, ingrata'' clearly sparked off in Handel's mind a recollection of the aria in Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, nearly 30 years previously, which began with the same words.) Janos Bandi is a reliable tenor, but his rather heavy tone and delivery would seem to be better suited to opera of a later period: and Laszlo Polgar mars the good impression of his noble voice by being fractionally under the note in his first accompanied recitative. The problem member of the cast is Eva Bartfai-Barta as the disguised king: her singing is so variable that it is hard to believe it is always the same person. In some arias, notes above F are tight and insecurely placed, while elsewhere she shows no sign of strain (for example, in her big solo ''Non sara poco'' at the end of Act 1, she goes up to a top C—an astonishing piece of writing for a castrato): in the central section of that same aria, however, her fioriture are far too approximate, yet in ''Si, si, mel raccordero'' she negotiates similar passages splendidly. Yes, there are undeniable blemishes in this performance, but overall it is very engaging, with much attractive light and shade.
I have heard only the CD version, which except for a slightly woolly chorus at the start of Act 2 is crisply recorded. As the work last 135 minutes, it might have been possible to accommodate it on only two discs, but Hungaroton has opted for the tidier, if more expansive, distribution of one disc per act.'