Gagliano: La Flora
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Description
The birth of opera began around 1600 in Florence, where this new genre was used to accompany important political events. The court conductor Marco da Gagliano, who had also become acquainted with Monteverdi's new style during his time in Mantua, created a whole series of operas for the Medici house, but only two have survived.
His opera La Flora, to a libretto by the Florentine court poet Andrea Salvadori, was written for the wedding celebrations of Margerita de' Medici to the Duke of Parma Odoardo Farnese in 1628.
The mythological material has many political references and tells of the love between the wind Zeffiro and the nymph Clori, who changes her name to Flora when she marries and gives birth to many kinds of flowers. Botticelli had already pictorially realised this myth 40 years earlier in his "Birth of Venus" and "La Primavera".
For this recording, more than a dozen solo singers, choristers and a large instrumental cast have come together to bring Gagliano's opera back to life almost 400 years after its premiere!
Tracklisting
Orphenica Lyra; Jose Miguel Moreno
Jose Miguel Moreno; Emma Kirkby
Attilio Cremonesi; Alessandro De Marchi
Gaetano Nasillo; Jesper Christensen; Tobias Bonz
La Real Camara; Emilio Moreno
La Ritirata; Josetxu Obregon
Lina Tur Bonet, Musica Alchemica
Eduardo Eguez, La Compagnia del Madgriale
Deryck Cooke, Georg Solti; Vienna Philharmonic
Il Divo
Thomas Sanderling, Orchester des Nationaltheaters Mannheim
Malcolm Sargent, Mary Lewis, Tudor Davies, Maggie Teyte, Clive Carey, Marie Howes, Harry Plunket Greene, James Johnstone
Maria Callas
Soloists; Eroica Berlin; Jakob Lehmann
Luigi De Donato; Collegium 1704; Vaclav Luks
Anna Moffo; Cesare Valletti; Fernando Corena; Erich Leinsdorf