Early music specialists are still working through the wealth of Handel operas that began coming more to light in the late 20th century. Flavio, Rè di Longobardi remains one of his more obscure works. Its musical variety and richness make it a piece that deserves more attention and this excellent recording in Chandos' series of Baroque operas featuring
Christian Curnyn and Early Opera Company makes a strong case for it. The plot, like that of many of Handel's operas, is convoluted to the point of being indecipherable, but each of the characters is carefully drawn. These singers invest each one with an incisive dramatic distinctiveness, and their voices are different enough that here is never in doubt as to which characters are singing.
Curnyn leads a superb cast in an elegant performance. Countertenors
Tim Mead and
Iestyn Davies have voices that aren't particularly large, but they sing with effortless-sounding agility and lyrical attention to long lines, and because
Mead is an alto and
Davies a mezzo their voices are always easy to distinguish. The women, soprano
Rosemary Joshua, Renata Pokupic, and contralto
Hilary Summers, are all stellar, with warm, large, sensuous voices that they deploy with shapely musicality and dramatic insight. (In a disorienting voicing decision, for one pair of lovers Handel writes the women's part for a contralto and the trousers male role for mezzo-soprano.) Tenor Thomas Walker and bass-baritone
Andrew Foster-Williams are also compelling, almost but not quite in the same league. The Early Opera Company delivers a polished performance that conveys both the score's drama and its sometimes less than serious commentary on the characters' plights. Chandos' sound is clean and immediate.