Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816) was one of the leading composers of opera of his day. He worked his way up the musical scale in his native Italy before serving various Bonapartes until Napoleon met his Waterloo. Although I have classified this Passion as choral the listener should be aware that it is much closer to opera than to oratorio. In an hour and a half of singing there are only three choral pieces and Paisiello's approach seems to be to do what he was best at and write an opera to be sung by professionals rather than something that may encourage the listeners to become worshippers. The music is carried by just four singers: soprano Roberta Invernizzi is an excellent - if initially surprising - Pietro (Peter), Alla Simoni, another soprano is (Mary) Maddalena, tenor Luca Dordolo is Giovanni (John) and baritone Jose Fardilha is Giuseppe (of Arimathea). Perhaps not the most obvious four characters to retell the greatest story ever told but it works, at least so far as your monolingual reviewer can tell. The music is in the style of Mozart and the accompaniment from Swiss ensemble I Barocchisti directed by Diego Fasolis demonstrates that sometimes less means more. Altogether a pleasant discovery.

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