American countertenor Bejun Mehta shows off the range of his considerable dramatic skills in a gorgeous sampler album of reformist 18th century opera for the Harmonia Mundi label.

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John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

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We think of Mozart and Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) when we think of the birth of modern emotional realism in opera, but this duo was not alone in changing the course of the artform. Mehta has assembled music from like 18th century creative minds Tommaso Traetta (1727-1779), Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783) and Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782).

One of the most powerful arias on the album comes from Ifigenia in Tauride — not by Gluck, but an earlier setting of the story by Traetta. Two more goosebump-raisers are from Artaserse by Bach, whom we definitely need to appreciate in a new, operatic light.

Mozart, born in 1756, was the beneficiary of pioneering work done by the others in this assembly, so Mehta has chosen early work to highlight the similarities in style and intention, which is to convey emotional messages as clearly and unaffectedly as possible: A recitative and two arias from Ascanio in Alba, which is from 1771, and, to close the album, a receitative and aria from Mitridate, rè di Ponto, which he wrote a year earlier — at the ripe age of 14.

We also get a couple of fine arias from Gluck opera Ezio among the 15 selections.

There isn’t a dull moment on the album, thanks to Mehta’s elegantly nuanced interpretations, which seduce his listener one moment and blow hair sideways the next.

Mehta’s equally elegant collaborators are veteran historically-informed conductor René Jacobs and the period-instrument Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Jacobs’ colouring of the orchestral score is very impressive.

You can find more information as well as audio samples here.

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In case you need an introduction to Mehta, here he is in a 2006 Salzburg festival production of Mitridate, singing an aria that is not on the new album:

John Terauds

• Author
• Recent Posts

John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

Latest posts by John Terauds (see all)

• Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
• Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
• CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019