Diapente, with guest Felix Deak on viola da gamba presented a concert of music by John Dowland and some of his contemporaries at St. Thomas’s Anglican on Tuesday evening. It was a generous selection of pieces arranged for various combinations of the musicians available; Jane Fingler (soprano), Peter Koniers (countertenor), Jonathan Stuchberry (tenor and lute), Alexander Capellazzo (tenor), Martin Gomes (bass) and, of course, Felix Deak (viola da gamba).
It’s officially summer and Market Street is pedestrian only again. That means it’s possible to stage music performances there and yesterday Opera Atelier had the noon to two spot. I arrived a few minutes late so missed Maeve Palmer’s first aria but it did mean I walked in on the opening of my all time favourite Handel aria; “As with rosy steps the morn”, sung quite beautifully by Anna Sharpe. There were three sets and it was pretty varied; Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Haydn, Monteverdi, Rossini Purcell and Delibes, that I remember. Besides Maeve and Anna we got baritone Chris Dunham and countertenor Ryan McDonald accompanied by Chris Bagan on keyboards, Felix Deak on cello and Arlan Vriens on violin.
The idea of recreating an accademia musicale (private concert) at the home of Roman artist/patron Pier Leone Ghezzi in 1723 and putting on works that might have been played at such an event is an intriguing one. Add to that that we were promised caricatures; Ghezzi being a noted pioneer of the form. Marco Cera, who conceived the show, seemed to be onto a good thing.
What we actually got wasn’t exactly what I expected. There were the musicians, including noted baroque soprano Roberta Invernizzi, impersonating Ghezzi’s guests; from Vivaldi to Farinelli, with Cera himself as Ghezzi. But there was also Ghezzi’s servant, played as Harlequin, acted by Dino Gonçalves. The show was heavy on Harlequin’s cheeky chappy clowning which was, as the lemur put it, like “watching Jerry Lewis channelling Roger Rabbit”. Not really my thing.
