On the basis of this performance, the opera sounds like it might have been written by an amateur. It starts with an oddly clunky "Sinfonia" that could be generously described as "interesting" in its alternation of phrases of four and three bars' length.
The orchestration is at best perfunctory; the bulk of the music seems to have no middle, just a melody high in the violins, and a bass line, with very little, if anything, going on in between. Instances of counterpoint are scarce and rudimentary, and much of the writing sounds like the kind of insubstantial note spinning that can give the Baroque era a bad name.
There are some lovely exceptions; the countertenor aria "Mentre dormi amor fomenti" and the duet for soprano and mezzo-soprano "Ne' giorni tuoi felice" stand out for their depth of feeling and musical inventiveness. The vocal soloists are generally erratic, some mediocre and some more than adequate, but their unevenness makes for a roller coaster ride of a listening experience.
The standouts are mezzo-soprano Elisabeth von Magnus , soprano Mieke van der Sluis , and after a rough start , countertenor Gerard Lesne , all of whom sing with fine, focused tone and strong characterizations.
The sound quality of the live performance is generally poor and seems under-engineered, with prominent extraneous sounds like page turning and a singer clearing his throat. The Vivaldi enthusiast interested in L'Olimpiade would do better to explore the release by Opus , which also has the advantage of presenting a more complete version of the opera. AllMusic relies heavily on JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to use the site fully. Blues Classical Country.
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Reuse this content. Licida in the meantime has forgotten his own love for Argene. Despite the public context, this is a drama which focuses on the personal predicaments of the principal characters, each of whom faces an interesting conflict between head and heart somewhere along the line. The most effective and intimate moments occur in the recitatives, which are fluidly conversational and full of realistic interruptions, questions and exclamations, all of which Vivaldi handles with considerable and, some might say, surprising dramatic skill.
The arias, by comparison, are less carefully tailored to circumstance, though many are highly enjoyable pieces in their own right, if often for their scintillating string accompaniments as much as for their vocal excitement. Slow numbers, by the way, are remarkably thin on the ground.
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