Mozart: Ascanio in Alba

Mozart must have cursed Mitridate. Thanks to its success, he was landed with two more commissions for Milan, one of which, Ascanio in Alba, is revealed in all its circumstantial contrivance as yet another instalment in Philips Complete Mozart Edition. This must have been a particularly tedious chore: the Archduke Ferdinand was to wed and Mozart was hired to cast a musical veil over the political manoeuvring behind the marriage, and to gild the bride with more beauty than could, by all accounts, be properly attributed to her. So, Venus brings together Ascanio and Silvio in a courtly pastoral, but has to keep them apart long enough to facilitate the creation of a festa teatrale substantial enough for a full-blown allegorical intermezzo. If the lovers are not hiding from each other, spying on their respective virtues, then they are becoming sidetracked by the miraculous building of a new city; if they are not flattering each other or the gods in endless secco recitative, then they are awaiting destiny—and the waiting is long. Meanwhile a proliferation of nymphs and shepherds are on hand to sing and dance the hours away. Given the number of under-motivated choruses (most of the ballet music is cut here) it is small wonder that the over-recessed Salzburg Chamber Choir sounds weary and disbelieving. But this, and the trim, dutiful playing of the Mozarteum Orchestra under Leopold Hager certainly tries the patience of the listener every bit as much as that of the lovers. Venus's "Ancor per poco soffri" ("You'll have to endure a little longer") seems to be the motto of the day. But this is Mozart; and, sure enough, just as one is about to sneak off for another coffee, the ear is arrested by the sudden vibrancy of an unexpected accompanied recitative, illuminating a moment's silence, or by an aria, from the 15-year-old pen, which suddenly flowers from the tight buds of its surrounding growth. Ascanio, for instance, when left alone to question his vow of silence, has his words propelled by a sonorous choir of divided violas, and is granted a wonderful area of slowmoving harmonies and metrical cross-currents with which to sympathize with Silvia's torments. Agnes Baltsa catches nicely the tremulous ardour and inner turmoil within the lower register of Ascanio's writing, but the brilliance and power of the legendary Florentine male soprano for whom the part was written tends to elude her. Silvia, radiantly sung by Edith Mathis, purls out her "Infelici affetti miei" to an accompaniment which all but pre-echoes Cosi's "Soave sia vento". -- Gramophone [1/1992]