Tormento d’Amore Ian Bostridge, Cappella Neapolitana & Antonio Florio

• Antonio Sartorio (1630 - 1680): L'Orfeo:
• 1 Sartorio: L'Orfeo: Sinfonia 01:52
• Francesco Cavalli (1602 - 1676): Eliogabalo, Act 1:
• 2 Cavalli: Eliogabalo, Act 1: "Io resto solo?...Misero, così va’ aria di Eliogabalo" 03:55
• Alessandro Stradella (1639 - 1682): Il corispero, Act 1:
• 3 Stradella: Il corispero, Act 1: "Soffrirà, spererà" 01:27
• Pietro Antonio Cesti (1623 - 1669): Il tito, Act 1:
• 4 Cesti: Il tito, Act 1: “Berenice, ove sei?" 09:41
• L’Argia:
• 5 Cesti: L’Argia: Sinfonia 02:04
• Cristoforo Caresana (1640 - 1709): Le avventure di una fede:
• 6 Caresana: Le avventure di una fede: "Tien ferma Fortuna" 02:41
• Francesco Provenzale (1624 - 1704): La Stellidaura, Act 1:
• 7 Provenzale: La Stellidaura, Act 1: "Deh rendetemi ombre care" 05:02
• Il schiavo di sua moglie:
• 8 Provenzale: Il schiavo di sua moglie: Sinfonia 01:54
• Il schiavo di sua moglie, Act 1:
• 9 Provenzale: Il schiavo di sua moglie, Act 1: "Che speri o mio core" 07:17
• Giovanni Legrenzi (1626 - 1690): Il totila:
• 10 Legrenzi: Il totila: Sinfonia 01:51
• Leonardo Vinci (1690 - 1730): Siroe, Act 1:
• 11 Vinci: Siroe, Act 1: "Se il mio paterno amore" 03:31
• 12 Vinci: Siroe, Act 1: "Gelido in ogni vena" 06:29
• Nicola Fago (1677 - 1745): Il faraone sommerso:
• 13 Fago: Il faraone sommerso: Sinfonia 03:39
• 14 Fago: Il faraone sommerso, Act 1: "Nuove straggi e spaventi” 02:14
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741): Farnace, RV 711, Act 2:
• 15 Vivaldi: Farnace, RV 711, Act 2: "Gelido in ogni vena" (Farnace) 11:44
• Anonymous: Lu cardillo:
• 16 Anonimo: Lu cardillo 03:23
• Total Runtime 01:08:44

Info for Tormento d’Amore

With the 10 arias on Tormento d’amore, Ian Bostridge demonstrates the important place that the tenor voice held in Italian opera from the mid-17th to the mid-18th century – often thought of as the era of the castrato. At this time, there were two main centres of opera in Italy: Venice, where such composers as Cavalli, Vivaldi, Cesti, Stradella, Sartorio and Legrenzi were active, and Naples, home to Provenzale, Caresana, Vinci and Fago. In addition to arias – two of them in world premiere recordings – the album offers five instrumental sinfonie and a traditional Neapolitan song, ‘Lu cardillo’, or ‘The Goldfinch’, a songbird closely associated with Naples. Bostridge is partnered by conductor Antonio Florio and his ensemble Cappella Neapolitana.

"Ian Bostridge applies his lieder-singer intelligence to these operatic snapshots, for which his familiar expressive wail has an effective place. In general, however, his voice does not have the cut-through and presence that it had on his previous baroque album, ‘Three Baroque Tenors’ (EMI/Warner, 12/10). True, this is more intimate music than Handel or Arne, and the recording itself seems a little distant as well, but there are moments of vocal fragility and curious colour-shifts here that worry the listener – perhaps he is just not on best form. Mind you, Antonio Florio’s Cappella Neapolitana, soft and silky as they are in the opening Sartorio Sinfonia, also lack energy, rarely firming or brightening their tone from base-line lugubrious." (Gramophone)

Ian Bostridge, tenor
Cappella Neapolitana
Antonio Florio, Dirigent

Ian Bostridge
CBE has made regular appearances at the Salzburg, Edinburgh, Munich, Vienna, Schwarzenberg and Aldeburgh festivals. He has had residencies at the Wiener Konzerthaus, Carnegie Hall New York, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Luxembourg, London’s Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall. In 2018 Ian began an auspicious Artistic Residency with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the first of its kind for the ensemble.

In opera, he has performed the roles Lysander (Britten A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for Opera Australia and at the Edinburgh Festival, Jeptha at the Opéra National de Paris, Tamino (Mozart Die Zauberflöte) and Jupiter (Handel Semele) for English National Opera and Peter Quint (Britten The Turn of the Screw), Don Ottavio (Mozart Don Giovanni) and Caliban (Adès The Tempest) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. For the Bayerische Staatsoper he has sung Nerone (Monteverdi L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Tom Rakewell (Stravinsky The Rake’s Progress) and Male Chorus (Britten The Rape of Lucretia), for the Wiener Staatsoper he has sung Don Ottavio and for the Teatro alla Scala Milan he has sung Peter Quint. He has sung Aschenbach (Britten Death in Venice) for English National Opera, La Monnaie, Brussels and in Luxembourg.

Highlights of the 2019/20 season include his return to the operatic stage at the Deutsche Oper as Aschenbach Death in Venice; a tour of the USA with Brad Mehldau; performances of Schubert’s Winterreise at the Cartagena Music Festival in Colombia; a concert tour with Lucerne Festival Strings through Slovenia and Italy; Evangelist Matthew Passion in Torino and Bajazet in Handel’s Tamerlano with the Moscow State Philharmonic.

Booklet for Tormento d’Amore