If you’re in the market for a recording of Handel’s “serenade” for three voices (which actually plays more like a mini-opera for three characters), look no further than the Harmonia Mundi recording from 1987 that features Emma Kirkby, Carolyn Watkinson, and David Thomas. This new offering of Aci, Galatea e Polifemo from the Italian Dynamic label is weak, both vocally and in spirit, and additionally suffers from dull, characterless sound. There’s little sense of any drama happening (largely due to sluggish conducting and orchestral playing), and the voices of Galatea (alto Sonia Turchetta) and especially Polifemo (bass Giancarlo Tosi) just don’t have the technical wherewithal to negotiate Handel’s lively and often very ambitious lines.
The bass part requires a “surefooted” singer of heroic abilities to portray the Cyclopian ogre (including a solid range of more than two octaves), but here, Tosi’s awkward runs and inelegant leaps sound more like the stumbling, indelicate monster than Handel ever intended. Well, he “gets through it”–and that’s about the kindest comment I can make about all of these performers. Fortunately, Handel’s music nearly always rises to a certain level of congeniality, even when not performed very well. Sure enough, that’s the case here–after all, this work features some of Handel’s more youthfully vigorous, tuneful writing. But that’s not reason enough to consider this production, especially when you have an unquestionably superior alternative.
