Unlike today, neither George Frideric Handel nor Antonio Vivaldi was the most famous and most performed opera composer in the first third of the 18th century, but rather Leonardo Vinci (ca. 1696-1730). Educated in Naples, he was successful there from 1719, initially with several operas buffe before he turned to the more prestigious opera seria in 1722 with immediate success. As one of the most important representatives of the Neapolitan School, he left his mark on the Italian and soon also the European opera scene. Even Handel in faraway London could not avoid his music: in order to satisfy the public's taste, he put several pasticcios with their arias on the repertoire of his failing opera company. In 1730 Vinci died suddenly after colicky pains, and it was soon rumored that he had been the victim of a poison attack.

Franco Fagioli lavishes his "extraordinary agility and richly upholstered voice" (Gramophone) on Leonardo Vinci, the Neapolitan composer who influenced Handel and many later masters of Italian opera. Fagioli is joined again by Il Pomo d'Oro led by Zefira Valova, the superb period-instrument ensemble on his previous album. Veni, Vidi, Vinci features seven world premiere recordings from the Neapolitan composer, unearthed for this great recording.

For more than two centuries Naples was a province of Spain, and after this ended in 1707 the remarkable cross-fertilisation of culture between them did not stop. Much of the Italian music featured here has been edited from sources in Spanish collections. The vast bulk of it is devoted to Leonardo Vinci (one of the most celebrated Italian opera composers of the 1720s). Only one short piece tacked onto the end is actually Spanish: a colourful fandango from José de Nebra's zarzuela Vendado es amor,no es ciego (1744) in which three singers mockingly compare the squabbling goddesses of classical antiquity to bickering mothers-in-law.

With I Viaggi di Faustina Glossa is launching a new collection focusing on famous Italian singers from the 17th and 18th centuries, whose travels bear witness to the intense level of artistic activity then taking place in the major cities of Europe. Faustina Bordoni, the brilliant diva with whom we begin this series pursued her career mainly in Naples (the principal focus of this CD) and Venice, but also in cities such as Bologna, Parma, Dresden and London. These were cities hosting – with great success – operas by Johann Adolph Hasse (Bordoni’s husband), Nicola Popora, Leonardo Vinci, Francesco Mancini and Domenico Sarro; most of these composers are represented on this first selection of wonderful arias.

Everything is done with affection and great character as well as technical finesse. Such music demands innate timing, and these musicians, under Antonio Florio's direction, have it.

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená hasn't often sung Baroque music. Thus, it is all the more impressive that when she does, she devises really innovative programs with unusual music. Her enthusiasm for the project may be gauged by her comment here: "I could hardly imagine more passionate, savage, uninhibited yet loving and caressing companions for these desperate heroines than Vaclav Luks and the musicians of Collegium 1704." She's right about the musicians, yet the real spotlight is on Kožená herself. The program consists of secular cantatas from the first half of the 18th century; this genre has been neglected amidst the general rediscovery of Baroque opera.

Star countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic steps into new musical territory with the world premiere recording of Catone in Utica by Leonardo Vinci, a forgotten genius of Italian opera. The opera tells a powerful tale of Julius Caesar’s defeat of the Republican forces led by Marcus Porcius Cato in 46 BC, exploring the eternal themes of love, duty and honor. Featuring five countertenors along with conductor Riccardo Minasi who leads il pomo d’oro.

No less than five brilliant countertenors – including Max Emanuel Cencic and Philippe Jaroussky – join conductor Diego Fasolis and Concerto Köln for Artaserse by Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730). In early 18th century Italy, the Neapolitan-born composer was one of the brightest stars in opera, and Artaserse is considered his masterpiece.

World premiere recording featuring a superb performance presented by Antonio Florio and a cast of true Baroque specialists. This opera waited almost three centuries before its rediscovery by Antonio Florio and the Turchini orchestra. Founded in 1987 by Antonio Florio, the ensemble I Turchini consists of instrumentalists and singers living and working in Naples who specialize in the performance of Neapolitan music from the 17th and 18th centuries and in the rediscovery of music by highly-gifted composers who are now largely unknown.

Australian countertenor David Hansen became a hot new presence on the scene in the mid-2010s with a startlingly clear, powerful soprano voice. He's become enough of a phenomenon that skeptics have come out of the woodwork, pointing out flaws in his armor like the relative weakness of his middle register. It's true enough, and on Rivals there is a slight tend to wait for the big fast numbers while the more sedate scenes play out. But such cavils essentially miss the point. As the title suggests, Rivals: Arias for Farinelli & Co. explores not only music written for the 18th century castrato Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), which has been done before, but also for other singers of the time.

The tale of ill-fated Dido and her Aeneas, as recounted by Virgil, fascinated the 18th century English, who saw it as relevant to the royal machinations they had experienced over the previous hundred years. The glorious economy of Purcell's version was never matched, but numerous versions of the setting by famed Italian librettist Pietro Metastasio were performed on London stages. Handel gets top billing in the graphics here, but in fact this Didone Abbandonata is a work by the Italian composer Leonardo Vinci, who died at age 40 in 1730 before his influence was fully appreciated.

Based on a ponderous libretto by Metastasio (who defined his own work as “stellar”) Leonardo Vinci’s dramma per musica was premiered in Venice in 1726 and was triumphantly acclaimed. Since then, Siroe, Re di Persia was put to music by composers such as Vivaldi, Handel, Hasse, and Galuppi, to mention just a few. The story uses some of the elements of the plot of Partenope, almost as if it were a sequel moved to Persia. Siroe’s plot revolves around a family mystery mingled with passions, traitors en travesti, fatherly affection and filial honesty that echoes Shakespeare’s King Lear. Performed in concert version at Teatro San Carlo of Naples in 2018, this rare opera was chosen to open the theatre’s 281st season. Conductor Antonio Florio , specialist of the Neapolitan Baroque repertoire, revised the score.

Canadian superstar soprano Karina Gauvin pays tribute to baroque diva Anna Maria Strada del Pò, singing rarities by Vinci, Vivaldi and some of the greatest Handel arie di bravura. Like Strada del Pò in her prime, Miss Gauvin sings this repertoire with powerful expression and brilliant technique, in particular, the trills for which Strada del Pò was renowned. More than thirteen opera roles were created by Handel for Strada del Pò (including Sosarme, Orlando, and Alcina). Strada del Pò’s talent and style may have influenced the composer’s work as much as he contributed to the vocal and dramatic development of the prima donna in the first decades of the 18th century.

“This magnificent production is a complete and blissful success. Don’t miss it.” Those were the words of the French website Classique News when Leonardo Vinci’s rediscovered Artaserse was staged by Silviu Purcãrete at the Opéra National de Lorraine in Nancy. Complementing the CD version of the opera released in Autumn 2012, this DVD features no fewer than five of the world’s leading countertenors – assuming both male and female roles: Philippe Jaroussky, Max Emanuel Cencic, Franco Fagioli, Valer Barna-Sabadus and Yuriy Mynenko.

La Partenope is a rich and colourful production, superbly performed here by I Turchini Orchestra and conductor Antonio Florio, world-renowned specialists of Baroque repertoire. In this version comic intermezzi have been added, as was customary in the eighteenth century.