Glossa
Cast: Alicia Amo (Lucrecia), Giulia Semenzato (Tulia/Octavia), Natalie Pérez (Colatino), Judit Subirana (Laureta), Los Elementos and chorus, d. Alberto Miguélez Rouco Glossa GCD 923525 [2-CD, 110:00] Reviewing José de Nebra’s Vendado es Amor, no es ciego a couple of years ago, I hoped that we’d soon be hearing more from Los Elementos and their conductor Alberto Miguélez Rouco. Good things come to those who wait, and here is something very special indeed – the premiere issue of de Nebra’s fourth complete surviving zarzuela, and the last to be recorded, Donde hay violencia, no hay culpa (‘Where there is violence, there is no blame’, 1744). A variant of that line may be familiar from Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, where it is spoken by the heroine’s husband, Collatinus; and here indeed is a Spanish baroque setting of the tragedy, to a punchy, proto-feminist text in two acts by Nicolás González Martínez (1708?-1773), who later replaced José de Cañizares as court librettist. The result is exciting and entertaining music theatre, brilliantly served by the performers. As with de Nebra’s other zarzuelas, only a few characters sing: Lucrecia, her husband Colatino, his sister Tulia (initially engaged to the rapacious Sextus Tarquinius) and the housemaid Laureta. All four were written for leading soprano singer-actresses at Madrid’s royal court, while the other seven roles – including Sextus and his father King Tarquin – were spoken. Given this imbalance, Rouco’s pragmatic decision to dispense with the dialogue for home listening seems justified, especially as the zarzuela’s sequence of da capo arias, ensembles, choruses and interpolated instrumental numbers reflects the story by itself. Any spoken narration would have held up the action to little purpose. For though the arias offer moments of reflection in opera seria mode, there is nothing static about their music, which has the imaginative, emotional variety needed to carry the music drama. As in his other zarzuelas, de Nebra stands apart in several ways from those Italian and German contemporaries intent on providing songbird material. His dramatic ensembles are impassioned and driven to a degree which can stand comparison with Handel, or even Mozart’s classical operas. Here the ‘Aria a 3’ which provides the first act finale is outstanding, pitting Colatino’s conflict between love and duty against his wife’s fears for her honour, and his sister’s fierce calls for revenge against the duplicitous Tarquins. The Act 2 ‘seguidillas’ for Lucrecia and her husband is equally urgent and memorable melodically, and shows de Nebra once again breaking with convention (as in Iphigenia) by using the popular form in a tragic, aristocratic context. Two extended comedy arias for the ‘graciosa’ (peasant comedienne), bolstered by Martínez’s pungent texts, offer something very distinctive, mixing ‘alhambrismo’ musical gestures with a conversational style moving easily from spoken declamation to mocking, laughing coloratura, while stretching da capo conventions to bursting point.
Los Elementos and their conductor will be performing Donde hay violencia, no hay culpa – sensibly renamed La violación de Lucrecia – at Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela in March-April 2023, though with a different cast and with Rosa Montero’s narration delivered by the Goya Award-winning actress, Emma Suárez. Meanwhile, this excellent Glossa CD set brings a superb work back into the light of day, with thrilling success. © Christopher Webber and zarzuela.net, 2022 23/XI/2022 |