Cavalli: L'ormindo

A landmark in Baroque opera recordings, newly remastered.

This 'royal entertainment in music' was fashioned by Cavalli to a libretto by Giovanni Faustini for performance in Venice in 1644, two years after L'incoronazione di Poppaea saw the light of day. Through the course of Ormindo we follow the adventures of two pairs of lovers as they betray, deceive and flee from each other before the inevitable happy ending. A death scene in prison for the eponymous prince and his sweetheart Erisbe is marked by a grave pathos that sounds down the centuries - at least since Raymond Leppard exhumed the score from total obscurity.