The main rival to Händel in London at the beginning of the 18th century, Giovanni Battista Bononcini never saw the same level of posterity as his German colleague. However, his Griselda, Crispo and Astarto saw great success. While time was kind to Händel, it cast Bononcini’s operas into shadow.
His Poliferno created in 1702 at the Prussian court was not an opera in the true meaning of the term, but a vast serenata lasting an hour and a half. His librettist had the idea of mixing two tales: the story of Acis and Galatea and the jealous cyclops Polyphemus, and the misadventures of Scylla and Glaucus loved also by Circe, thus two love triangles reunited in one singular work. In this musical score, Bononcini need not envy his German rival thanks to his constant inventiveness and great sense of melody.
Initially brought back to life in Germany in 1944, this Polifemo was recorded in 1987 by René Jacobs and has since been represented on stage. This new realisation was recorded during the concerts presented at the orangery of the Sans-Souci château in Potsdam in June 2018 under the direction of Dorothee Oberlinger (also the director of the Potsdam Festival) at the head of the Ensemble 1700 which she founded in 2002. One cannot fault the quality of its execution, thanks to an irreproachable vocal distribution supported by an extremely precise instrumental and stylistic approach. © François Hudry/Qobuz