Gramophone Magazine
March 2023
DVD of the Month

Teresa Iervolino (Orlando), Paola Valentina Molinari (Medoro), Ekaterina Bakanova (Angelica), Gaia Petrone (Licori), Sergio Foresti (Titiro), Barbara Massaro (Tirsi)

La Lira di Orfeo, Federico Maria Sardelli, Gianluca Falaschi

Nicola Porpora was a composer who helped to turn Italian opera into the most successful and spectacular genre in Europe. One of the few luminaries of the ‘Neapolitan School’ to actually be born in Naples, Porpora wrote L’Angelica, a serenade for six voices and instruments, to a libretto by the young Pietro Metastasio in 1720. The work was composed for the birthday of Empress Elizabeth Christine, wife of Charles VI, and its plot is comedic, focusing on the travails of a couple in love. The opera’s success was immediate, resulting in the commissioning of further works that would lead to ever more glamorous successes for Porpora in Venice, London, Dresden and Vienna.

"The predominantly young cast sing and act with verve...La Lira di Orfeo under Federico Maria Sardelli play with spirit. Porpora, rival of Handel, mentor of Haydn, is worth exploring." - Gramophone Magazine, March 2023.