According to legend, the young Roman noblewoman Lucretia was raped by Tarquinius, son of the Etruscan king of Rome. After she redeemed her family’s honor by committing suicide, her tragedy led to the downfall of the monarchy. The story is unusual in classical literature in acknowledging female rape as a crime. Still, had Lucretia not taken her own life and precipitated a rebellion, it’s unlikely that she would have been memorialized in art by men.
Lucrezia (Portraits of a Woman), the latest album from conductor Jérôme Correas and his superb French early-music ensemble, Les Paladins, collects the only four Baroque solo cantatas that address the story, composed by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, Alessandro Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, and Benedetto Marcello.
This new recording on Aparté scores big with four stellar early-music vocalists. Montéclair’s Morte di Lucretia is sung by soprano Sandrine Piau, Scarlatti’s Lucretia Romana by soprano Amel Brahim-Djelloul, Handel’s well-known Lucrezia by soprano Karine Deshayes, and Marcello’s Lucrezia by mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot. For lovers of the female voice, the recording is a bonanza.
It would be far better if Aparté had not limited the libretto included in the album booklet to Italian and French. While it’s easy to find an English translation of Handel’s cantata online, and you can even find translations for Montéclair’s and Scarlatti’s, listeners should not have to hustle on the internet while trying to sit back and take in the full measure of the music and performances.
The artistry of the four singers goes a long way to compensate. Piau, who was approaching 58 at the time of the recording, remains in top form. Her singing is animated and fully committed, her trills perfect, and her tone free and beautiful. Beyond her technical accomplishments — she judges ornaments and variations perfectly and never sounds rushed during her multiple improvised flourishes over a two-octave range — her portrayal is movingly sung.
Brahim-Djelloul’s lyric soprano is equally attractive, but her extreme approach to suffering too frequently crosses the line into melodrama. In addition, some of her lowest-lying passages are half-spoken, and the boundaries between individual notes in rapid runs are less distinct than ideal. (To be fair, Scarlatti does fit a lot of notes into a single phrase.) But Brahim-Djelloul also surprises with a single long-held note that’s a thing of wonder and a death in which the final “Addio” is drained of all vibrato and emotion.
Deshayes is equally accomplished. Though her approach is more diva-like than the other singers’, and the lowest part of her range is not her glory, she is sensational in the fast section of “Ah! che ancor.” Her soft singing is wonderful, and she throws all caution to the wind as she ends the final movement by rising to a sensational high B.
Richardot, the sole mezzo on the recording, has a fascinating mature sound that, to these ears, has a bit of the schoolmarm to it. I love how she half-speaks her declaration of revenge, biting into some of her low notes as though savoring the thought of seeing her rapist suffer. Every word comes alive in her performance, and the ending trails off movingly.
If you’re someone who thrives on purely instrumental music, you will not be left entirely wanting. Correas, who plays harpsichord and organ, joins his six fellow instrumentalists for two short works by Bernardo Pasquini and Marcello. The timbral combinations are delicious, and the regal grace of the Adagio from Marcello’s Concerto a Cinque in F Minor, Op. 1, No. 7, is well worth savoring.
