The season at the Munt opened with Mozart’s Magic Flute. A season which, for a change, includes two 19th century Italian staged opera’s which are neither Verdi nor Puccini and has a mere 30% of contemporary operas. Unfortunately, Meyerbeer’s grand opera is not staged (though we are still waiting for the coproduced-but-never-staged Muette de Portici, or a re-staging of the wonderful Py/Minkowsky Huguenots with a excellent 2nd cast headed by John Osborn).
Magic flute, then, a very traditional title, directed by an unconventional director. Magic flute is one opera, which, in my opinion, HAS to be re-interpreted. The sun against the darkness, Pamino in search of Pamina, Monostatos, are the symbols of the progressive/active patriarchy against the evil/passive matriarchy, the manipulation of the natural for its own good, with a hint of racism and misogyny. An odious text, which got an enlightening new vest in last year’s Gent production by David Herman. On another planet we are with Castelluci’s view on the subject. While the overture stands for the darkness (all in black, a neon tube light is shattered etc), Act I is all in white. And when I say all, I mean everything. The people, the clothing, the shoes, the background, the props, the floor, everything. All singers and all dancers act with small and slow movements. The singers have doubles, which mirror their movements and even lip sync, the dancers behind them dance slowly, creating intertwined choreographic forms which are enhanced by the use of feathers and of slowly rotating platforms. No spoken dialogue, just one musical piece after the other. At the end of act one bizarre shapes (architectural forms designed by algorithms by Swiss architect Michael Hansmeyer) move together with the singers, dancers and the doubles creating a huge, white, barock cathedral.
Act two is totally different in that the setting has contemporary features. It starts with eerie music while pregnant women pump their milk from both breasts. I was too busy looking at the technicality of the process to read the text projected above them so i missed the philosophical point. However, with these ladies the mother figure started to get its recognition (the Mother/Queen of the night was also the only figure which was not doubled). The setting was not white anymore but all-beige, the floor, a separating wall, the clothes even the hair. The music starts, but while Act I was played without text, in act two newly created text is interposed into the musical pieces and recited. First by five women, later by five men. The women, one by one, tell us, within 1 minute each, about the moment they became blind, who at a small age, who suddenly while on a plane etc. They tell about the world they see, a world made of shadows and darkness. The men on the other hand tell about the moment in their lives when their skin was burnt, who through scalding oil, who through fire, an explosion etc, a world made of desperation, scarring skin and the moment of “too much light”. Latest by then it becomes clear that Castellucci opposes the moment of lights to those of shadows and pulls a parallel to the darkness and light of the Queen and Sarastro.
Castellucci certainly finds a way to make us think and breaks with conventions, but the message is so overwhelming that the music and the libretto lose all connection with their creators. The orchestra, which includes 18th century brass and timpani, has not much life, I heard Manacorda direct much better. None of the singers have any particular flaws but none are really memorable or touched me in any way.
Muzikale Leiding-Antonello Manacorda, Regie, Decor, Kostuums, Belichting-Romeo Castellucci, Choreografie-Cindy Van Acker, Algoritmische Architectuur-Michael Hansmeyer, Artistieke Medewerking-Silvia Costa, Dramaturgie-Piersandra Di Matteo, Antonio Cuenca Ruiz, Koorleider-Martino Faggiani, Sarastro-Tijl Faveyts, Tamino -Reinoud Van Mechelen, Sprecher-Dietrich Henschel , Königin Der Nacht-Jodie Devos, Pamina-Ilse Eerens , Erste Dame-Tineke Van Ingelgem, Zweite Dame-Angélique Noldus, Dritte Dame-Esther Kuiper, Papageno-Georg Nigl, Papagena-Elena Galitskaya, Monostatos/Ein Mohr-Elmar Gilbertsson, Erster Priester/Zweiter Geharnischter Mann- Guillaume Antoine, Zweiter Priester / Erster Geharnischter Mann-Yves Saelens, 20/09/18, pictures from movie-stills published on demunt.be
It’s always interesting to follow the Viaggio a Reims of the Accademia in Pesaro, one can hear interesting young voices which might be successful one day. Excellent, I thought, was the Lord Sidney of Nicolò Donini, with not only fluid coloratura but also the emphasis he put on pronunciation and interpretation. Milla Mihova’s Cortese was also quite good with a strong voice, fluid embellishments and a steady top register. I would have loved to hear her as Corinna. A tenor I also enjoyed was Anatoliy Pigrebnyy as Belfiore, with a nice extension and a ductile voice. Corinna, Folleville and Trombonok all simplify the quick coloratura, Sennikova is a bit mellifluous. I would have loved to see Carles Panchon, who sang the role of Antonio the 17th, sing the role of Sidney the 14th (the students of the accademia alternate roles in two different dates). His voice was quite beautiful and strong and convinced even in the small role of Antonio with a funny mimicry. The orchestra was adequately conducted by Hugo Carrio.
Ricciardo e Zoraide was one of the main events in Pesaro this year, the opera was composed in Naples in 1818 but was not, also in modern times, very lucky with revivals. Juan Diego Florez comes back for yet another role composed for Giovanni David, the tenore di grazia active in Naples at that time. (In fact most of Rossini’s Neapolitan operas have 2 tenor roles, one tenore di grazia and one baritenor. The latter was Andrea Nozzari, for whom Rossini composed the roles of Otello, Rinaldo (Armida), Pirro in Ermione, Rodrigo (La donna del lago), Antenore (Zelmira). Juan Diego Florez, a
For the 150th anniversary of Rossini’s death this year, the ROF commissioned a new Barbiere di Siviglia, a choice much criticized on- and offline. The reason being Barbiere being one of the world’s most performed operas and the detractors wished a more rare opera. Nonetheless, in my view, it turned out to be a very good production. The setting is beautiful. In an atemporal Seville, Pizzi plays with the airy space and just a few touches of contrasts and colours. The singers’ movements are very generic, some good ideas but not everything convinces (Basilio’s stutter, Bartolo’s French R…). Very elegant the costumes.
Maybe Spagnoli is more delicate in the search of the right nuance, though I found his voice not always as round and soft especially in the higher register, but both have an excellent musicality, are wonderful actors, have wonderful body gestures. The phrasing is excellent, each word adapts to the flow of the music, the pronunciation impeccable. Two charismatic top singers. Mirinov is very good as count, not a big voice but he nimbly flies over all runs. Not very big isn’t Rosina’s voice either. I’m not sure why the ROF keeps choosing her in the mezzo or alto roles. The vocality does not suit her very much. The voice is placed high and one can hear that even in the recitatives which don’t have necessary weight in these low roles. In the rapid embellishments she’s not always audible. When she gets time she does reach the low notes, her coloratura is fluid, her pronunciation good and she moves well on stage. Elena Zilio is lovely as Berta and Pertusi a correct Basilio.
Saverio Mercadante’s Didone abbandonata contains beautiful music. The opera has magnificent melodies (the ouverture, both Enea’s entrance and second at aria, the act I finale and the act II terzetto, Didone’s final aria are all beautiful), gripping ensembles and a refined orchestration and it is easy to believe the success it had after its premiere in Turin being played in Naples, Paris, and London. I would love to see it staged again.
The set by Magdalena Gut works well. A rotating top floor of a concrete building-in-making with iron rods sticking out from the floor make for an unfinished carthagean palace. Cringy however the direction by Jürgen Flimm. Not sure a grotesque psychopath Jarba who rapes and strangles Selene, slaughters Araspe ans stabs Osmida is what Didone’s final aria needed. For the rest singers were left to their fate as it seems they didn’t always know what to do onstage and characters were rendered only superficially. Better Alessandro De Marchi who keeps things going swiftly and directs energetically. Remarkable and excellently prepared the Coro Maghini.
Nicola Vaccaj is now mainly famous for his didactic singing method for opera singers but in his time he was an accomplished composer albeit in the shadow of Rossini. His Giulietta e Romeo
The delicate Giulietta was extraordinarily interpreted by Leonor Bonilla. Her beautiful voice rose to the top, ethereal notes very easily. Raffaella Lupinacci as Romeo perfectly rendered the energy of young Romeo. Vocally she did an excellent job in the chiselling of colours but her voice is not strong enough in the low notes and at times she was not very audible. Christian Senn’s Lorenzo was also very good with an equal register everywhere and a very good pronunciation. Leonardo Cortellazzi was an excellent Capellio, good pronunciation, vivid top register, beautiful timbre and fine impersonation of the compelling character the librettist Felice Romani makes of the father. I was less impressed by Vasa Stajkic’s Tebaldo who’s interpretation was a bit monochrome. The excellent Paoletta Marrocu could only make a stage-wise impressive and vocally expressive loving mother.
The slightly gothic staging was simple but effective. A lateral transversal wall with medieval touches (representing first the Capulets’ palace with the balcony, and then the walls of the cemetery), a tomb and impressive lighting was enough to put us straight into the plot. The movement of the masses was excellent and also the single characters were admirably guided and thanks to Cecilia Ligorio’s direction the show had basically no drops in tension. In my opinion the only disagreeableness came from the conductor. He got loads of applause but in my personal view he directed too much on the slow side, so much as to sometimes lose the arch of the musical line. Directing in an open space he also did not balance the volume enough and some of the beautiful accompaniment got lost in the…open air.
I always wondered, in Belgium’s cultural life, what Belgians were most interested in. And as listener to concertgoers’ comments and to various concerts, I’m coming to the conclusion that not the music is the most important thing but the artist. Looking at the previous years’ Bozar printed programs, it almost bothered me how the orchestra or the main artist not only had the biggest font, but were in bold AND underlined. The performers were just below, the font slightly smaller but still in bold, and listed one by one, each performer deserved a single line of course. The composers 
came afterwards, not bold anymore, and the actual composition came in an even (slightlty) smaller font. Funnily enough sometimes even not listed separately, as if to save space. But hey, who was I to complain, all the info was there.
The Sesto of Anna Goryachova is wonderful, her range equal in all registers, her coloratura exact and she is fully immersed in the character. Her recitativo accompagnato that opens the finale of act one (O dei che smania è questa) is very dramatic and shows her also an excellent actress, but the highlight for me was the aria Deh, per questo istante solo (Sesto’s confrontation with the emperor) where acting, singing and directing were just excellent. Lothar Odinius as Tito has a strong voice and sings delicately but it is not light enough to sing the runs accurately and he sinks in intonation in more than one occasion. Vitella is Agneta Eichenholz, her upper and lower register are not fully convincing and sometimes she pushes the notes from below but she sings acceptably well, her notes being satisfactorily steady to pass unharmed the trio (Vengo! Aspettate!) and the final aria. Cecilia Molinari is an impeccable Annio with an excellent phrasing. Very good also the Servilia of Anat Edri. This wonderful production was completed by the Publio of Markus Suihkonen and the chorus of the Flemish Opera.
It was a pleasure to to see this production a second time, if only to see how well Michieletto can tell a touching story and only minimally interfere with the libretto. In this Donna del lago he tells the story with the eyes of old Elena and her secret love to the king. Elena and Malcolm have aged and they witness their own plot, discovering secrets they most likely didn’t tell each other. There were some very touching moments and I loved to see the show in the intimacy of the theatre rather than the huge space of the Adriatic Arena. Mariotti loves the score I feel. The rubati, the small plays with tempi and dynamics bring the score to life and it’s such a joy to hear him direct. The orchestra is far from impeccable but I never heard it play so well (bravo the clarinet). Rodvnanovsky had parts of his voice that sometimes sounded «unclean» (a cold?) but he masters his difficult role with relative ease. It’s more technical mastery, as where Pizzolato, although she lost some of the creaminess of her voice, has not only still impeccable coloratura but plays wonderfully with the colours, and her clear pronunciation makes poor Malcolm become a true romantic lover. Salome Jicia is less convincing than in Pesaro, she attacks her high notes a bit harshly at times, her pronunciation could also be improved but she makes a fine Elena nonetheless with a powerful coloratura and a beautiful closing aria. The small house of Liège is advantageous to Mironov’s voice, not large, but beautiful, light and flexible, sings excellently and in understandable Italian, his second act aria (whose melodic line I always found somewhat strange). Very well also Simón Orfila as Douglas. Barbaric the choir.
Mozart was 16 when he composed Lucio Silla but it remained the last opera he wrote for Italy for after the opera premiered during the Carneval season of 1773, the Regio Ducal Teatro (for whom Mozart wrote Mitridate and Ascanio in Alba) did not commission any more operas to Mozart. The opera has no easy or proper plot, which is not uncommon in operas of that period. Although the librettist Giovanni de Gamerra went on to play a small role in the development of what was to become romantic opera, the characters in Lucio Silla are very static. Mozart composed a varied palette of music, some conventional pieces, others remarkably deep, using some new and elaborate forms, a considerable amout of recitativi accompagnati-a more dramatic form than the recitativo secco-and expanding the orchestra with trumpets, giving the orchestra more elaborate writings then relegate it to a standard accompaniment. Recitivi were written when still in Salzburg while the arias were composed tailormaid to the strengths of the singers. They all turned up in Milan between end of November and beginning of December 1772. The first Cecilio was the famous castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, while the first Giunia was Anna de Amicis, equally famous. De Amicis “was very satisfied with the arias, and Mozart introduced in them passages which are very unusual, unique and extremely difficult and which she sings amazingly well…” father Mozart reported, who was in Milan with his son. Giunia and Cecilio each sing in 7 pieces. And Mozart gives them a wonderful duet to close Act I. Lucio Silla himself sings only in 3 pieces, which is either due to his text written to be conveyed dramatically by the recitativo or by the fact that the originally intended star had to be replaced last minute with a lesser known singer, or both. The new tenor arrived December 17th and the next day Mozart had composed the two arias for him. Cinna has also only 3 arias but has the privilege to sing the first, while Celia’s role lightens the atmosphere, seen that she is not included in the political plot. The full orchestra rehearsals were done the 18, 20 and 22 December, the dress rehearsal the 23rd and the opera was performed the 26th and run for 26 performance, a considerable amount. Mozart was pleased with both Anna de Amicis and Venanzio Rauzzini, and for the latter, around the 15th January, he composed the famous motet Exultate, jubilate.
The director sets the story in modern days and when the curtain rises, one sees a modern house (which later revolves) and tress around it, very much like in Pizzi’s Pietra del paragone, but less stylish. But the plot is quite thin, the da capo arias very long and Tobias Kratzer really only asks for very conventional movements (except for much cutting of veins and a dog running around) and the little action on stage starts boring very soon. The orchestra played the ouverture swiftly and nervously (maybe a bit too nervously?) but Manacorda directed and accompanied very well. I thought Jeremy Ovenden was just acceptable. His lower register weak, his interpretation extremely thin. Much better Lenneke Ruiten. Her role has extreme demands and she manages well with a beautiful and bright top register. In one of the most difficult arias ever written Ah se il crudel periglio she convinces much less (drops a note every now and then to breath). Anna Bonitatinus gave a lovely recital of Rossini songs a couple of weeks back. A forgotten repertoire that she rendered beautifully. But her Cecilio was not as convincing. Her tight vibrato is a bit unpleasant and it seems to me Cecilio is a size too big for her. Her 2nd entrance aria was sung with much transport and fury and was a joy to hear, as was her last aria, but there are constant struggles with pitch. Marvellous Simona Saturova as Celia. She sings her four arias wonderfully and with great taste. I had big hopes for the opening aria but i had to wait for Ilse Eerens to sing her other two arias which allows her to show her bravura. I like her beatiful timbre and clear top notes. Good also Carlo Allemano but untidy roulades.
An pleasing enough Norma was given at Liege this week. I did not like everything of Davide Garattini-Raimondi’s direction. It had the merit of being on 3 levels which allowed to play with movements of the single versus the masses, but I found the paper mache-looking setting a bit unrefined, although I guess deliberate. Personally I did not see the necessity of the overly made-up faces and neither of the dancers who hopped also in the most inappropriate scenes. To me it looked a bit silly.
Verdi-centered fans told me they heard so much Verdi in Donizetti’s Pia di Tolomei, but Pia was composed 3 years before Verdi even started composing operas. Nonetheless it contains some beautiful music and in the recent past Pia de Tolomei got already some attention: staged several times at the end of the 60’s, beginning of the 70’s, under the vibrant direction of Rigacci (with a wonderfully sympathetic Lella Cuberli), in 2005 la Fenice presented it with Patrizia Ciofi, the Opera Rara label recorded it, and now in Pisa it sees the light again. It was however a Pia de Tolomei without Pia. The main singer started badly with an entrance aria that revealed vocal problems as soon as the voice had to rise even a slight bit. No legato, wobbly line, and one awfully squeaked top note did the rest. Not to talk about the interpretation, which was totally absent in the desperate but unsuccessful attempt to get at least the notes right. The rest of the cast was quite enjoyable. Marina Comparato knows how to sing, one could enjoy the beautiful lower register, in the cavatine more than in the cabaletta. Her contribution to the beautiful duet with Pia was touching. The tenor was a lovely surprise: Giulio Pelligra in the role of Ghino mastered the difficult leaps with apparent ease and Valdis Jansons as Nello was especially moving in Lei perduta in core ascondo, where he utters his hate for Pia…but still loves her. The music is flowing brightly under the baton of Christopher Franklin while the setting and lights are lovely. Questionable some of the stage directions by Andrea Cigni.
A charming Fra Diavolo was given in Rome. The points of interest were for me John Osborne as Fra Diavolo and Barberio-Corsetti’s stage settings. The latter’s love for video projections are known, and he mixes them masterfully with the scenery which resulted in a sparkly and light interpretation. Musically the opera is very French with couplets and songs typical for French light opera. When Fra Diavolo was translated into Italian for the Italian stages, Auber composed new arias for the main characters in a more Italian style in order to show off their vocal qualities and it was in the Italian translation that the opera was most successful. The cast reunited for the Roman staging was very satisfying, and quite enjoyable were the crystal clear voiced Anna Maria Sarra, the funny Sonia Ganassi as Lady Pamela, Giorgio Misseri was a touching Lorenzo and John Osborne as Fra Diavolo. Rory MacDonald conducted swiftly although I found he sometimes covered the voices.