Italo Montemezzi - L’Incantesimo / Волшебство (Рига, 2019) 

Greatly overlooked!

La musica di Montemezzi è una continua scoperta, musicista ingiustamente poco eseguito ma capace di grandi e incantevoli suggestioni .

Very beautiful! Enchanting music and wonderful performance from all soloists and orchestra. The true opera-lovers need more "incantesimi" like this!

Stupenda! Grazie

Folco, a nobleman - Vladislav Sulimsky, baritone Giselda, his wife - Dana Bramane, soprano Rinaldo, her former suitor - Irakli Kakhidze, tenor Salomone, a necromancer - Romāns Poļisadovs, bass A servant - Rihards Millers, baritone The action takes place in Folco's wintry castle during the Middle Ages. Folco, a boastful and possessive man, has sent for Rinaldo, but, noting the falling snow, worries that his old friend will not come. Rinaldo had loved Folco's wife Giselda, and had longed to marry her. Giselda questions Folco as to why he has summoned her old love, whom she has not seen since their wedding. Folco tells her that Rinaldo is bringing with him a magician, whom Folco hopes will be able to tell him the meaning of a disturbing encounter he'd experienced while hunting earlier that day. Rinaldo finally appears, accompanied by the mysterious necromancer Salomone. Folco welcomes them warmly, and in his aria "Allora ascolta!", explains how, while pursuing a wolf in the snowy forest, he'd raised his eyes to behold a white hind whose face was that of Giselda. Bewildered, he had stabbed the creature, whose sad eyes seemed to beg for mercy, and then had fled, horrified, into the forest. Salomone explains that if Folco's love for Giselda can survive, he must return to the forest, find the wounded hind, and carry it lovingly back to the castle, as if it were Giselda herself. Folco assures the magician that he can certainly accomplish this. As soon as Folco leaves, Rinaldo passionately informs Giselda that he has never forgotten his love for her, but rather has, in the loneliness of his dwelling gazed upon her, and held her as if she were all his. Giselda scolds Rinaldo, but he assures her that love can accomplish anything, and that he thus has no doubt that she will be his. But Giselda scoffs at his ardent assurances. Love can do anything? Can it change the wintry garden that they see through the window to spring? If love can do that, she tells him, then she'll believe him. But Salomone interjects, "If you love, you shall see the spring." Folco now returns. He has not found the body of the doe in the forest, and mysteriously, cannot seem to see Giselda now either, but rather sees the body of the doe lying where she stands. Suddenly, the garden blossoms, and Giselda sings ecstatically of its ravishing beauty, and yields herself to Rinaldo's love.

compositore italiano trascurato in patria,eseguito a Riga,che vergogna!!