Vivaldi : Motezuma. Priante, Nesi, Cherici, Curtis.

   in Early Music Today (Dec, 2011)
Vivaldi’s music for Motezuma, long believed to be lost, was rediscovered in 2002, although less than two-thirds has survived. This 2008 Ferrara production uses the version completed by Alessandro Ciccolini and recorded by Alan Curtis in 2006. Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco reappear here, albeit with a different cast of singers, except for Vito Priante’s Motezuma. Director Stefano Vizioli opts for a brutal, modernist approach, a Brechtian take on Cortez’s conquest of Mexico that sees the stage strewn with corpses for much of the opera, although such grim realism rather undermines the baroque emphasis on stylised displays of vocal artistry. The singers here have their moments, but many of the arias …