Vivaldi: Dite, oimè! Ditelo, al fine (from La Fida Ninfa)

Verónica Cangemi was born in Mendoza, Argentina and was a cellist in the Mendoza Symphonic Orchestra before winning both the National Singing Competition in Argentina and the Francisco Viñas Competition in Barcelona. Her first European performance was in Gluck’s Armide with Les Musiciens du Louvre. She has concentrated largely on Mozart and the Baroque repertoire, working with such directors and ensembles as Giovanni Antonini, Ivor Bolton, William Christie, Adam Fischer, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, René Jacobs, Ton Koopman, Sir Neville Marriner and Zubin Mehta.

The Baroque pieces on the album contain highly virtuosic music by composers like Nicola Porpora that would have been performed by the great castrato Farinelli, as well as arias by Vivaldi and Handel renowned for their challenging vocal lines. The Latin flavour of the disc is complemented by the inclusion of 20th century pieces by Piazzolla, Guastavino and Villa-Lobos all of whom hail from Cangemi’s native South America.

A new recording from Roberta Invernizzi always gives pleasure, but on the rare occasion when the Italian soprano is placed in the spotlight, as with this new collection of opera arias, it promises something very special indeed. Invernizzi is known for her style and drama in the music of the Baroque (as on recent discs of Handel and Campra). This new journey, on Glossa, showcases Vivaldi’s own fertile dramatic capacity to capture moods and a whole range of emotional highs and lows embracing anger, despair, anxiety, amorous frustration and touching intensity. Invernizzi triumphs, crowned by her electrifying performance of 'Dopo un’orrida procella' from 'Griselda'.

The programme offers a set of contrasts in known arias from Vivaldi’s operatic music and those which deserve to be better-known. Invernizzi’s interpretation is aided and abetted by La Risonanza’s fine group of instrumentalists and, of course, sympathetic direction from Fabio Bonizzoni, speaking volumes for their long musical association.