Old News, Well Delivered

It was heralded as a momentous event in the musical world when in 2002 the score of Vivaldi’s opera Motezuma was found among the materials from the Berlin Sing-Akademie, which had disappeared during World War II but had recently been rediscovered in Ukrainian archives. The libretto had always existed, but now a copy of the score – at least a large portion of it – had also surfaced intact. In an admirable collaboration between musicologists and performers, the music was identified, the missing portions reconstructed, and the piece brought to its “modern-day world premiere” in 2003. This 3-CD Archiv Produktion set presents the first ever recording of the work. And the recording is extremely well done. Overall, the performance is spectacular, the instrumental ensemble under Alan Curtis clear, crisp and energetic throughout, and much of the…