By Leo Duarte
Opera Settecento, whom you may think of as “The pasticcio people” after our performances at the London Handel and Halle Handel Festivals of Handel’s 34 PROOF 7: 21-10-22 pasticcio operas, Elpidia, Ormisda and Venceslao is poised to go into the recording studio next month with tenor, Jorge Navarro Colorado. We are most grateful to those members of The Handel Friends, The Serse Trust and Jorge’s family whose donations have enabled us to record our first CD which is entitled “Arias for Ballino.”
Owen Swiney relates that Handel talent-spotted Annibale Pio Fabri, known affectionately as Balino or Ballino, the diminutive form of his forename, in Bologna. Swiney writes, “This Man Sings in as good a Taste as any Man in Italy.” Of a performance of Lotario in London, Mrs Pendarves wrote, “a tenor voice, sweet clear and firm..He sings like a gentleman without making faces. The greatest master of musick that ever sung upon the stage.” I hope any of you who have recently attended ETO’s Tamerlano production will agree this review could easily have been written about Jorge’s performance in the role of Bajazet. Before travelling to London, Ballino sang in operas by Vivaldi, Caldara, Alessandro Scarlatti, Orlandini, Gasparini, Leo, Vinci and Porpora. In 1719 he became a member of the Accademia Filharmonica of Bologna as a composer. He was named President of the Society no less than five times. In London Handel wrote roles for him in Lotario, Partenope and Poro and he appeared in revivals of Cesare, Tolomeo and Rodelinda. Handel also transposed arias from Scipione, originally written for castrato, specifically for Ballino to sing the title role. Later in his career he was based in Vienna, had considerable success in three operas by Hasse performed in Madrid and composed his own setting of Metastasio’s great libretto, Alessandro nell’Indie. With such a wealth of wonderful repertoire associated with Ballino, we have not only put together an enticing and varied list of arias but can also claim modern premieres for many of them.
Until now Opera Settecento has focused on resurrecting neglected operas as concert performances, although both our Halle and Vienna performances have been broadcast around the world. It is a big step for us to launch our first CD and we need in the region of a further £10,000 to make its release in 2023 a reality. Cheques can be made payable to The Serse Trust, and sent to 6, Beechwood Avenue Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 9TE. We are a registered charity so can claim Gift Aid on your donation if you are a UK tax payer. As a taster of what is to come, here is a link to Jorge singing with us on Youtube.
https://youtu.be/PUcWXO52sJk