Search - Francesco Cavalli, René Jacobs, Maria Bayo :: Cavalli: La Calisto

A gem of an Opera

J. Luis Juarez Echenique | Mexico City | 05/04/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"La Calisto is such a great masterpiece that I can't understand why it's not better known, it's a delicious comedy about a lusty Jupiter in love with la Calisto a novice of the cult of Minerva. The music is exquisite, the performance admirable. If you want to investigate post Monteverdi opera, start here. You will certainly enjoy the sensuous Calisto of Maria Bayo, and a tour-de-force performance from Marcello Lippi singing as baritone (when roaming as Jupiter) and countertenor (when impersonating Minerva to seduce Calisto). Rene Jacobs is such a stupendous conductor that it's easy to rate him as one of the finest musicians in the World, this recording of La Calisto is ample proof."

Fake reconstruction

A. J. T. Sanchez | Madrid, Spain | 11/05/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"La Calisto is truly a masterpiece and this is revealed in Jacobs recording, which shows very good taste and excellent singers. Nevertheless, it is not Cavalli's score. Venetian opera was normally written for voices and continuo with seldom use of violins in ritornelli and a few accompagnati arias. Jacobs, as Leppard did twenty years earlier, seems not to trust Cavalli's music because he has completely re-orchestrated the original score. The result does not sound like Venetian opera at all. It is more or less like Leppard with original instruments and cleaner voices. I think time has arrived to offer to the listener more rigorous reconstructions of early music."